The Cuckoo's Egg
by Lawndale Stalker
Summary: Daria turns a lamer-than-average writing assignment into an opportunity to right an old wrong.
1. Regurgitated Caterpillars

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

~*~

"Gee, Daria, that kind of stinks. Everyone else gets to write about being any animal they want, but you have to be a little baby songbird." Jodie sympathized as they exited Mr. O'Neill's classroom.

"Yeah, nothing to do but sit in the nest all day, eat regurgitated caterpillars, and learn birdsongs. Not much scope for that unique Morgendorffer style there." Jane agreed.

A corner of Daria's mouth turned up. "Oh, ye of little faith. Y'know, I was afraid I was going to really hate this assignment, but now I see it as… a challenge."

Mr. O'Neill stepped out the door. " Daria, I just wanted to say that I certainly don't want to stifle your creativity, but I just knew you'd pick something like a great white shark or a giant squid, or a bubonic plague bacillus. I could tell you didn't think much of the basic idea, but I want you to give it a fair try. The extra restriction is just to help you lighten up a bit." He put on a cheery smile and made a little 'go team' gesture with his fist. "I _know_ you can write a happy story if you put your mind to it!"

"I understand, Mr. O'Neill. Don't worry, I can handle it." Daria turned and walked off down the hall, along with Jane and Jodie. Mr. O'Neill smiled after them. 

Out of earshot, Daria muttered, "Of course you want to stifle my creativity. Or worse, to pervert it to writing drivel for your amusement. Well, it won't work. You should have settled for the giant squid, Timothy me lad. I'm sore afraid my wee warbler might prove too mickle for ye." An evil smirk appeared on her face, and soon spread to Jane's.

"Um, Daria, you're kind of mumbling to yourself again," she observed.

Daria chuckled silently. "Darn. And I almost had you thinking I was sane," she replied.

Jodie grinned. "You really think you can write one of your trademark awful stories about a baby bird?" 

"Of course. A baby bird's life is naturally awful. What would be hard would be to write one of those happy-happy, touchie-feelie kiddie stories like O'Neill wants." Daria smiled and tapped her forehead. "The story is already written, up here. I pretty much had the outline before he finished the sentence, but I may want to do some fine tuning on it. I think I can use it in a project I have in the works." She grinned. "This one may be a three-bagger. A hat trick, you might say."

Jodie said "Huh?"

"Timothy, Quinn, and, I hope, Mrs. Manson." 


	2. A DeLuxe Psychological Workup

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

Chapter Two

A DELUXE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKUP.

~*~

Later, seated at her computer, Daria's thoughts returned to a day about a month ago, in the consulting room of Dr. Jean-Michel Millepieds at Quiet Ivy. Jean-Michel was saying: "You know, Daria, at first I thought you had problems, serious problems. But now I see that you're remarkably well adjusted." He paused and glanced at a hypnotized Quinn in a nearby chair, "considering."

Daria smiled a tiny smile, which quickly faded to a bitter expression. "Too bad you're not our school counselor instead of Mrs. Manson. She talked to me for two minutes on my first day of school and threw me into a self-esteem class. That diagnosis will probably follow me the rest of my life."

Jean-Michel seemed distressed by this. "You are joking, _non?_ It is plain that you do not suffer from lack of self-esteem."

Daria gave him a rueful smile. "I don't think she actually thought that. I was a little, um, creative with my answers to some of her questions, and that was her way of putting me in my place."

"I see." Jean-Michel sat frowning in thought for a moment. "Daria, I am researching a paper examining the problems persons of very high intelligence have in fitting into society. I would very much like to use you as one of my subjects. Your name would of course not be mentioned. We would do a more thorough interview, and a more complete battery of tests, what we call the DSM Four. You would then be able to use the test results and my analysis to refute that obviously false diagnosis. The cost of this would normally be over three thousand dollars, but if I may use the results in my paper, there would of course be no charge to your family."

Daria gazed thoughtfully out the window. The thoughtful look gave way to a small smile.

~*~

Helen and Jake Morgendorffer were just sitting down to a bit of brunch between interviews in the Quiet Ivy dining area when Daria and Jean-Michel approached them.

"Guess what, Mom, Dad!" Daria smiled brightly, startling Helen. "I won a free three thousand dollar deluxe psychological workup!"

Helen looked up from her coffee and Danish to her daughter, looking mildly surprised. She looked to Jean-Michel standing beside Daria, then over to Jake, who had just bitten into a big gooey cinnamon roll and was wearing his customary totally-out-of-the-loop look. Sighing, she looked back to her daughter. "Could you expand on that a bit, Daria?"


	3. As Soon As They Turn Off The Current

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

by Galen Hardesty 

Chapter Three

AS SOON AS THEY TURN OFF THE CURRENT

~*~

Quinn dragged her big suitcase over to the door beside her small suitcase, and began packing her makeup kit. "Come _on,_ Daria! We'll be leaving in a few minutes! I know you only brought a change of socks and underwear and a bunch of books, but it's going to take you at least ten seconds to pack."

Daria was lying on her bed reading one of Jean-Michel's papers she'd found in Quiet Ivy's surprisingly large library. "You go ahead, Quinn. I'm staying." 

Quinn straightened in surprise. Her head jerked around to stare at her sister. "Omigod, they're keeping you? Oh, Daria, I'm sorry. I didn't think this was that kind of place. But I'm sure it's for the best. When you come back home, you'll be much happier. Um, they are going to send you home eventually, aren't they?"

Daria favored her sister with a sardonic look. "Oh, yes, the shock treatments are very fast-acting. They say I'll be much happier as soon as they turn off the current."

Quinn gasped. "Shock treatments! Oh, n... oh, ha, ha, Daria. Good one."

Daria continued reading. "Thank you for your concern, Quinn, but I'm just going to be helping Jean-Michel with a paper he's writing."

Quinn arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow at her sister. "Sure, Daria, if you say so. I know you wrote some papers for Middleton students, but I think this would be a little over your head."

Daria let a small smile escape. "I'm not ghosting it for him, Quinn. The paper is about... let me translate for you... the problems brains and superbrains have fitting in with normal people. He needs more superbrains for a decent-sized sample."

"Are you ready, Quinn?" Helen was standing at the door to the girls' room.

"Almost. Mom, Daria says she's staying here to _help_ Jean-Michel. Is that true?"

"Yes, Quinn. He'll be giving her more tests and talking with her, and she'll be one of the subjects of a study he's working on. Your father will pick her up Sunday evening."

Daria gave Quinn her Mona Lisa smile. "We'll be working _very_ closely together. We'll have the place practically to ourselves over the weekend." 

Quinn's eyes widened in alarm. Helen concealed her amusement.

"Muh-Ooomm! You _can't _let her stay! If my friends find out my cous- sister is in a place like this, my reputation will be _ruined!_ And, uh, she'll be all scared and lonesome and stuff all by herself!"

Jean-Michel had just arrived at the door. He and Daria exchanged a look, then Jean-Michel looked over at Helen, who looked away, embarrassed. "Quinn, wait for us in the car."

"But Muh-om! Ohhh! Quinn headed for the doorway, managing to suggest staggering and flouncing in a single gait.

"And take your suitcases with you. I'm not letting your father throw out his back like he almost did when he carried your luggage in here. Use the wheels. I'll get your makeup kit."

Quinn looked as if Helen had just announced she'd been sold to an Arab oil sheik. Helen said "Don't give me that look, Quinn. You packed it. You tote it."

Daria smiled at the memory and returned to her story.


	4. Cheeping Piteously

WARNING: THIS STORY IS UNBETA'D AND UNSPELLCHECKED. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

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by Galen Hardesty

Chapter Four

CHEEPING PITEOUSLY

~*~

As Daria and Jane headed for Creative Writing class next day, they could see Mr. O'Neill standing by his classroom door. As they entered, he greeted them. "Hello, Linda, Doreen. How are you coming with your writing assignments?"

Jane replied, pointing to herself, "Me Jane. I have an idea, about a spider who's trying to weave the most beautiful web ever. But I can't figure how she'd keep bugs out of it."

"Interesting, Jane. Very creative. Keep at it! How about you, Doreen?"

Daria didn't even bother. "Mine's about a little baby songbird in a nest."

"Uh, yes, Doreen, I know. That's what I assigned you. How far along are you?"

"I'm finished."

"Really? So quickly? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since it's you, but I am impressed."

"Well, I didn't have to spend a lot of time groping for an idea."

__

Was there a hint of reproach in Doreen's voice, O'Neill wondered?_ No, just her usual semi-monotone delivery. If there were any hidden meanings in her words, they were hidden well._ "So, does it have a happy ending?" he asked.

Daria's look remained unreadable. "I wouldn't want to give it all away, but I'll quote you the last line if you like."

O'Neill smiled. "Yes, Darlene, I'd like that."

"Okay. It goes 'I turn, spread my tiny wings, and fly free.'" Daria walked past him into the classroom, followed by Jane, smirking and shaking her head minutely, and they took their seats. Smiling, Mr. O'Neill turned back to watch for his other students.

Timothy O'Neill closed the book and looked up at the clock. "Well, we seem to have some time before the bell. Darla, would you read your Animal POV story for us, please?"

Jane controlled her anticipatory smirk and turned to a fresh page in her notebook. Jodie shifted to a posture that looked thoughtful and attentive and allowed her to cover her mouth. Charles Ruttheimer, grinning, slipped a microcassette recorder out of his backpack and switched it on.

Daria rose and came to stand by O'Neill's desk. _I wonder if you'll remember me any better after I read this,_ she mused. She began to read, placing a slight emphasis on her first name and glancing sideways at O'Neill.

"The Cuckoo's Egg, by Daria Morgendorffer."

"I awake. It is warm and dark. I am surrounded by softness and reassured by the beating of my mother's heart. All is well. I close my eyes and drift back toward sleep."

For a second, O'Neill's face had shown a trace of what might have been dismay, but Daria didn't know whether that was from realizing he'd been messing up her name again, or from the slightly ominous title. His usual determinedly optimistic smile had returned as she'd begun reading the text.

"Mother is stirring. I awake again, and from underneath Mother's wings and breast, I see glimpses of the nest, and of the mysterious world beyond. The world looks green and… leafy. I feel an urge to go out there somehow, and explore, but I feel a stronger urge to eat some caterpillars and go to sleep again."

Brittany, chin resting on her interwoven fingers, was giving Daria her whole attention. Kevin also seemed enthralled. Perhaps he was hoping that Ratboy might make a guest appearance, Daria thought wryly. Or maybe he just liked having stuff read to him.

"A shadow falls over me and my sibling, and the remaining eggs of our clutch. We open our mouths wide and cheep eagerly, but the large bird that lands on the rim of the nest is not one of our parents. The large bird regards us with a cold eye. It brings up no caterpillars, but settles heavily into the nest, crushing us beneath it. After wallowing roughly back and forth, and a long time of relative stillness when I am barely able to breathe, the large bird rises and takes flight. I pick myself up off the floor of the nest, cheeping in pain, and see a large speckled egg that wasn't there before, an egg much larger than the others."

Jodie's eyes widened, and she slipped a hand over her mouth to cover a grin. A few seconds later, Jane's expression showed that she had also gotten it.

"Father lands on the rim of the nest, a bug clamped in his beak. I chirp and flap my stubby wings, but my heart in not in it. The bug looks hard and spiky. Father gazes at us for a few seconds, then stuffs the bug into the gaping beak of my smaller sibling, who struggles to choke the leggy thing down. 

Father now heaves and gags and regurgitates the remains of a large green, yellow, abd black striped caterpillar, oozing green caterpillar guts and covered with gastric juices and saliva. Aah, that's more like it! I stretch out my pinfeathery neck as far as it will go, open my beak to its limit, and cheep enthusiastically. Father cocks an eye at the other chicks, then stuffs the dripping caterpillar down my throat. Then he lingers to sing his song of challenge, warning the world of dire consequences if any dare trespass on his territory, as I strain to swallow the slimy, still feebly squirming gutbuster. Ah, life is good. Or it would be, if someone could free me from the hordes of lice and mites that are constantly biting me and sucking my blood."

Daria paused briefly to savor the chorus of eewwws and bleaahs from her classmates, and the expression on Mr. O'Neill's face. "Better enjoy it while you can, Timmy," she thought. "That's as good as it gets. From your POV, anyway." As she continued reading toward the denoument of her story, she reflected that the old saying, "Be careful what you ask for, you might get it," would henceforth have a richer, fuller meaning for him. 

"The egg in the center of the nest, the very large one, is hatching. From it emerges an ugly, brutish thing. It looks… wrong, somehow. Not like my other brothers and sisters. And even though I am the oldest, eight full days old, this grim hatchling is larger than I am."

Jane smirked and began to sketch O'Neill as a chubby caterpillar menaced by a pugnacious-looking baby bird bristling with pinfeathers. Brittany, Kevin, and the boy behind him with his ear chained to his nose listened raptly.

"But, far from throwing the interloper out, my parents seem mesmerized by it. They compete to feed it the choicest grubs. They seem not to see it brutally pecking at me and my legitimate siblings. It cheeps louder, opens its beak wider, postures more dramatically, and stretches upward farther than we can hope to. It is a master of 'cute, hungry baby bird.' I cannot compete, and so I go hungry while the monster gorges and grows."

Brittany dabbed at her eyes with a blue and yellow hankie. Kevin blinked rapidly and quickly wiped something from his cheek.

I cry out my hunger, my need, but the Cuckoo chick gets the worm yet again. The Cuckoo chick has it all, therefore the Cuckoo chick gets it all. Is there no hope for me, then? I can see none.

Jane was leaning far back in her desk, eyes squeezed shut, one hand clamped over her mouth and the other on her stomach, jiggling with smothered laughter.

"The last egg has hatched. Mother gently helped it emerge, then carried the shell away to dispose of it far from the nest. As soon as she had gone, the Cuckoo chick shoved the helpless hatchling over the side. I looked down to see a dark form appear, pick up my doomed sibling in its mouth, cheeping piteously, and slink away. By the time Mother returned, no trace remained."

Daria noted that Upchuck was shaking with suppressed mirth and grinning gleefully. Andrea, smirking wickedly, was dividing her time between watching Mr. O'Neill and her fellow students, and sketching in her notebook. 

"...And now in the end, I alone remain, I and the gigantic Cuckoo chick. Weak and hungry, my growth stunted, I am driven to the very edge of the nest. Not yet fully fledged, I know my premature first flight will be my last. One more good push will do it. But here at the last, the monster has slacked its shoving. It towers over me, just looking, with that eternally hungry gleam in its eye, and it almost seems that there is a smirk on its beak. Then the awful truth dawns upon me. The Cuckoo chick has outgrown my parents' ability to satisfy its ravenous hunger. It intends to eat me, and my parents, off desperately gathering food, cannot stop it. Nor can I. No, wait. Yes, I can. At last, I know what I must do. I turn, spread my tiny wings, and fly free." 

Daria lowered her papers and looked up. Jodie Landon was grinning fiercely and pinching her nose to keep from laughing out loud. Mack was hiding his face behind Jodie. They needn't have bothered. Mr. O'Neill, head down on one arm, sobbing, pointed to the door with the other hand, which held a hall pass. 

Daria approached his desk. "Mrs. Manson?" she asked. Mr. O'Neill sobbed louder and nodded. Daria took the hall pass, picked up her book bag, pumped her fist in the air, and exited to a round of cheers and applause. 


	5. Probably Nothing Seriously Wrong

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

Chapter Five

PROBABLY NOTHING SERIOUSLY WRONG

~*~

At Mrs. Manson's "Come in" Daria opened the door and entered. Mrs. Manson was pretending to be busy with some papers on her desk. After a minute, she jotted something, set the papers aside, and looked up. "Ah, Dara. What can I do for you?"

"It's 'Daria', and you can write me a hall pass to the library."

Mrs. Manson smiled a humorless little smile. "Somehow, I don't think that's why you were sent here, Dara. Who sent you, and why?"

Daria pulled up a chair and sat down, which seemed to displease the counselor slightly. "It's 'Daria'. I read a writing assignment in Mr. O'Neill's class. He started crying and handed me this pass. He never said why."

"Oh, my." Mrs. Manson seemed to be genuinely amused now, but trying not to show it. "Well, let me see what you wrote."

Several minutes later, Mrs. Manson laid aside Daria's story and put on her best friendly, caring look. "This is very well-written, Dara, even if it is very dark and grim. You're one of our most gifted students, and of course we all want you to do well. Do you feel a lot of pressure to succeed, Dara?" 

"I want to succeed, but if you mean are my parents hounding me to succeed, then no, Charlie."

Mrs. Manson started a bit at this, then drew herself up to her full height. "My name is not Charlie. You will please address me as 'Mrs. Manson.'" She hesitated, as if remembering something from some long-ago class. "Or… Margaret," she added with a strained little smile.

Tickled at having derailed Manson's interrogation, Daria suppressed a smirk. "Okay. And my name is not Dara. You will please address me as Ms. Morgendorffer. Or… Daria," she replied, breaking the barb off in her opponent.

Mrs. Manson took a deep breath and her jaw muscles visibly flexed. After a few seconds, she continued, "Have you been under any unusual stress lately?"

"No, just the usual."

"Oh? And what is 'the usual?'"

"I want to get a good education and prepare myself for college, but I have to come to Lawndale High instead."

Mrs. Manson scowled and made a notation.

"Is there stress in your family? Say, from a pending or possible divorce?"

"Well, my dad is kind of stressed about his relationship with his father."

"Does your grandfather live with you?"

"No, he's been dead for twenty-three years."

Mrs. Manson looked like she didn't know what to do with this information. She made another note. "Um, well, perhaps we'll come back to that."

__

"After you have a chance to consult your Cliff Notes," thought Daria.

"How about your mother, Dara?" Manson asked.

"Well, she's been kind of busy at work lately, Marilyn," Daria replied, straight-faced.

Manson started again, looked very irritated, and scribbled something short and probably pithy on her paper. "Fine, **_Daria._** Now, how long has your mother been 'kind of busy at work'?"

"Oh, the last ten or twelve years or so."

Manson gave Daria a sharp look at this, but could detect no sign of joking or untruthfulness. "I see," she said, making a longer notation, "And how does this make you feel?"

"Disinclined to pursue a career as a lawyer," Daria replied glibly.

"Don't cover up, dear. What are your true feelings about your mother spending so much time at work?"

Daria put on an expression as if examining her deepest inner navel. "Well, I'm sorry she has to work so hard, but…"

"Yes?" Manson tried to sound encouraging. 

"But I appreciate the room and board," Daria finished, smiling a tiny smile.

Manson frowned, sighed, and scribbled a note. "Do you or any family member have a serious illness?"

"My father has hypertension, but the medication is bringing his blood pressure down."

"What about a pregnancy?" Manson eyed Daria very narrowly as she asked this.

"Not currently."

"Not currently? In the past, then?" Manson asked eagerly.

"Yes, my mother was pregnant on two occasions."

Mrs. Manson started to write something, then stopped, scribbled through it violently, and glared up at Daria. "Have you ever had thoughts of 'hurting' yourself?"

"I pinch myself sometimes, but it doesn't work. I never wake up."

"No, I mean, 'doing harm' to yourself."

"Why would I want to do that? I take plenty of damage in everyday life without deliberately harming myself more."

"Don't be evasive, Dara. Have you ever attempted or thought of attempting suicide?"

"Oh, is that what you meant? Then you were being evasive, not me. You're the one using weasel words like 'hurting yourself'. And no, I've never attempted or seriously considered attempting suicide." 

Manson frowned. "Is there any history of suicide in your family?"

"No."

Looking slightly disappointed, Manson made a note. "Have you been feeling depressed lately?"

"Yes."

Manson's eyes lit up. "When?"

"When O'Neill gives me a lame assignment like "Write a story about yourself as a little baby songbird."

Mrs. Manson scowled and marked through what she'd just written. She read over her notes for a minute, frowning thoughtfully, occasionally tapping her lips with her pen. It was an expensive pen, Daria noted, but it bore Frobnico Pharmaceuticals advertising copy.

Manson scribbled something on a card and handed it to Daria. "Dara, I'm recommending that your parents schedule an appointment for you to see Doctor Drake. There's probably nothing seriously wrong, but it won't hurt to be sure."

Daria looked at the card. Her left eyebrow lifted noticeably. "Neurologist? Do you think I have a brain tumor just because I didn't write Mr. O'Neill a happy kiddie story about cute little baby birds?"

Mrs. Manson minutely straightened a few papers in Daria's file folder, looking minutely smug as she did so. "As I said, Dara, it's probably nothing serious. You shouldn't worry about it."

"And if I don't go to see this person?"

Mrs. Manson looked ever so slightly surprised at the question. "Well, Dara, that will be up to your parents, now, won't it?" she replied with a hint of smugness.

"If I don't go?" Daria repeated.

"Well. In such a case, Dara, I should have to recommend that you be suspended from school until you did go. For your own good, of course. And for the good of the other students." Mrs. Manson made a note.

Daria rose from her chair, still looking Mrs. Manson straight in the eye. Several remarks, ranging from sarcastic to indignant to eviscerating, danced on the tip of her tongue, but she stored them away for possible use on another occasion. "My name is Daria," she said, then turned and walked out. Down the hall several steps from Mrs. Manson's door, Daria drew the microcassette recorder from her pocket, turned it off, and put it back. "And you're going to remember it," she concluded.


	6. The Next Lizzie Borden

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

CHAPTER SIX 

THE NEXT LIZZIE BORDEN

~*~

Daria and Jane had just settled themselves at their customary lunch table when Jodie and Mack came up. Jodie said, "Ah, there's our little mockingbird!"

"Tweet freaking tweet," Daria deadpanned. "How did the rest of the class go?"

Mack slid onto the bench at the other side of the table. "What rest? O'Neill never recovered. Practically the whole class had left by the time the bell rang."

"But not Jodie, of course," Jane hazarded, "And therefore not Michael?" 

Mack rolled his eyes. "How could I pass up a chance to watch and listen to Mr. O'Neill blubber incoherently over the cruel fate of a fictional baby bird?"

Jodie looked indignant as she settled in. "Why should we sneak out of a class just because we can?"

Daria smirked again. "That's why, all right. Got it in one! There's hope for you yet, Jodie."

It was Jodie's turn to roll her eyes. "You can't learn anything if you're not in class."

"Or if you are," rejoined Daria, "but you can take the opportunity to spread misery to other faculty members."

"Speaking of which," Jane put in, "How was your deathmatch with Mad Man Manson?"

"She's clinging to life, but I think I won on points."

"You think?"

"Well, I won't know for sure until after Dr. Drake checks me for brain damage."

"Huh?" said Jodie and Mack together.

Daria pulled out the card and held it up. "Yeah, Bride of Frankenfurter sent me to a neurologist to get my head candled." 

"Mm. Inconvenient, to say the least. But I had the impression that you wanted to lock horns with Manson. Is this not going according to plan?" asked Jodie.

Daria chuckled wryly. "My quote, plan, unquote, was basically to give Manson another shot at me in hopes that she'd do something stupid or vindictive enough that I could get her slapped down for it. I won't know whether I succeeded or not at least until I can get a look at her notes from today's session."

"Huh?" said Jodie again. "Doesn't she keep that stuff locked up in her office?"

"Why, yes, Jodie, she does," Daria replied sardonically, "Right hand file cabinet, middle drawer, four folders back from Jane's."

"Hey!" said Jane.

"Five folders back from yours," Daria continued, smiling a tiny smile as she sadistically toyed with her stewed carrots. 

"Daria! You'd better not be browsing my psych profile!" Jodie said truculently.

"Hey, what's a girl to do? I've read practically all the interesting stuff in the library," Daria smirked. "She thinks there's a good chance you may become the next Lizzie Borden." 

Jodie glared at Daria, one corner of her mouth turning up slightly. "Strange you should mention that," she riposted smoothly, "I was just going to **axe** you about it."

Jane was amused by this exchange almost as much as by Mack's wide-eyed reaction to it. He looked like he was afraid he'd have to separate the two at any moment. "You think your folks'll actually make you go see this guy?" she interjected. 

"Probably." Daria replied. "Dad won't touch this with a ten-foot Slovak. He'll probably think it's something related to female complaints. Mom is an expert worshipper. She'll take the word of anyone with a degree or a certificate over mine any day, no questions asked." 

"She never checks to see if they're competent?"

"Not unless the person is on the other side of a lawsuit she's working on," Daria replied resignedly.


	7. Here's To My Brain On Drugs

~*~

  
THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

CHAPTER SIX (b)

SEROTONIN FROM SHINOLA

~*~

"…leaves me sitting on that damned butcher paper till it bonds to me, then he shines a light in my eye, and makes me walk a line and touch my nose! Quack! Charlatan! Moron!" Daria Morgendorffer was not happy.   
  
Helen Morgendorffer wasn't too happy either. "I think the doctor knows a little more about his field of specialization than you do! I'm sure those are all legitimate tests for something." She turned her attention back to the street ahead and braked sharply.  
  
"**_I_ **think he got his diploma over the Internet from someplace in Liberia. **_I_** think he doesn't know serotonin from Shinola. **_I_** think he's a quack! His name is Drake, for crying out loud!"  
  
"That doesn't mean a thing, and you know it! I've long suspected there might be a chemical basis for your depression, and now an expert has confirmed it! You should be delighted that you're finally getting help!"

"And where did you get _your_ neurology degree? Albania? Bulgaria? Cracker Jack? He took one lousy blood sample, and he hasn't seen the results. He knows nothing. He just couldn't wait to push some pills on me. I am NOT depressed!"  
  
"Oh, come now, Daria! You have the most negative, cynical outlook on life I've ever seen!"  
  
"A negative outlook is not depression. Anyway, my outlook isn't negative, it's realistic. And I am not cynical. I am a Cynic. It's my chosen philosophy. But I could _get _depressed, explaining this to you over and over with no sign of comprehension on your part."  
  
Helen got into the turn lane for the mall parking lot. "You watch your mouth, young lady, or I'll..."  
  
"Or you'll what? Turn me over to Dr. Quackenstein? Forcibly drug me? At this point, you're about out of stuff to threaten me with." Daria crossed her arms tighter and glared at the dashboard as if to burn a hole through it. She wondered how long Helen had been waiting for a chance to alter her personality, and if it would do any good to forcibly resist.

Helen pulled into a parking space and switched off the ignition, but made no immediate move to exit. She took a deep breath, then let it out. "Come on Daria. I'm not your enemy. I'm your mother, and I'm trying to help you."  


Daria's look softened. This was true. Her enemies were out of her reach. For now. "Mom, I'm not depressed. Drugging me won't help me," she said in a quiet, sad voice.

Love and sympathy mixed with Helen's irritation. "Daria, you've been examined by an expert. He prescribed this."

Sadly, Daria wished her mother had a little less blind faith in "experts" and a little more loyalty to her family. She pointed out, "Dr. Millepieds is an expert. He says there's nothing wrong with me."

"Dr. Millepieds is a psychologist. He didn't test your brain chemistry; that's not his field. Dr. Drake is a neurologist. He ran tests, and he prescribed Prohappia."

The mention of Drake's name roused Daria's anger afresh. She began ticking off points on her fingers. "Dr. Millepieds knows depression when he sees it, and he didn't see it in me. Dr. Quack took one blood sample, the results of which he won't get back from the lab for a week or more. Then he asked me the exact same questions Manson asked me, in the exact same order. And the answers I gave them do not indicate depression. He prescribed the latest, most expensive drug from the company that's paying him the fattest kickbacks."

Helen gave Daria a gotcha look. "So, you were playing your little head games again? Well, maybe this time they were on to you. Maybe they diagnosed your problem in spite of you. That's what they're trained to do, you know."

Daria was pretty sure that Manson's and Drake's IQs added together wouldn't equal hers, and that they'd probably had to cheat like hell to get the diplomas they so proudly displayed on their office walls. Their chances of getting "on to" her were similar to their chances of being struck by lightning. But she knew it would do her no good at all to say so.

But more interesting to Daria than the folderol on Drake's office wall had been two envelopes she had glimpsed on his desk, envelopes from two major pharmaceutical companies. Envelopes containing checks.

"I answered their questions truthfully, and their diagnoses are wrong. That drug won't help me," Daria stated for the record. She knew Helen wasn't going to change her mind at this point. She followed Helen through Wally's door, her expression noticeably grimmer than usual. "And my "negative, cynical outlook" will turn out to be dead on, you mark my words."

  
  
THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

CHAPTER SEVEN

HERE'S TO MY BRAIN ON DRUGS

~*~

  


Inside Wally Mart, Helen stopped under a big Smiley Face and turned to her daughter. "Okay, Daria, why don't you get this filled while I do a little..." Helen pulled back the prescription slip. Daria's hand had come up a little too quickly, and set off Helen's alarm. "On second thought, I'll get it filled. Maybe you'd like to look around in Misses'..." The look in Daria's eye made Helen bite off the rest of that suggestion. "Well, I'm sure there's something you'd like to buy." Dreading the moment when she'd be telling Daria to take that first pill, Helen groped desperately for anything that might lighten her daughter's mood beforehand.  
  
"Well, I have been meaning to shop for a pistol. Give me your gold card and your driver's license." Daria held out a hand.   
  
Helen looked into her daughter's perfectly expressionless face and a chill ran down her spine. She was fairly sure Daria wasn't serious, but if she were, she'd look and act just like that. Then, realizing she was standing frozen in the middle of a busy aisle at Wally Mart with her mouth hanging open, she shook it off and handed Daria the gold card. "I think you can find something other than a pistol to buy, dear."  
  
Daria continued to regard her mother with that intense, expressionless stare until Helen blinked and glanced away, then silently took the card and headed off towards the electronics section. At least, Helen hoped that was where she was headed. Sporting goods was just beyond electronics. As she headed toward the prescription drop-off window, Helen reflected that Daria could probably find plenty of things to kill herself with in any department of the store. She shook her head and resolutely took her place in line. Sometimes those calm silent stares frightened her worse than Jake's wildest driving.  
  
~*~  


Helen and Daria sat at a little round table in the snack bar, each with an orange juice in front of her. Helen opened the little orange plastic pill bottle after some difficulty with the childproof cap, and shook out a rather large yellow tablet into her hand. "Here you go, Daria."

Daria stared at the tablet with an unreadable almost-expression on her face, but made no move to take it. When she looked up at Helen, there was a hint of fear in her eyes. "This is wrong. I'm not depressed. That won't help me."

Love and sympathy mixed with Helen's irritation. "Daria, you've been examined by an expert. He prescribed these. They will help you. Take the pill, sweetie."

Daria looked back down at the large cheery yellow tablet in Helen's palm. She hadn't foreseen this. She'd been so clever, so devious. But her brilliant scheme had taken an unplanned turn. She hadn't foreseen the combination of incompetence and greed conspiring to force mind-altering drugs down her throat. And she had lost sight of the fact that adults didn't need to outsmart her to screw her over bigtime. She looked back up at her mother. "I didn't realize how badly you wanted a clone of Quinn. I could rig up something out of rubber bands and paper clips that would keep the corners of my mouth pulled up. Would that help?"

Helen saw the fear in her daughter's eyes and heard the pleading in her voice, and her resolve wavered. She felt like she had that time when Daria was a baby and she'd had to use a rectal thermometer on the poor little thing. Well, sometimes we have to be strong and do the right thing for the ones we love, even if they don't want it, she thought. "Daria, we have to trust the experts. Now, I've taken a whole day off work, and I've spent a lot of money. All I'm asking you to do is swallow this pill. It's FDA approved, so you know it's safe. It'll make you feel better. Now take it."

"Thalidomide was FDA approved. So was Fen-Phen. They still haven't yanked aspartame." 

"Daria, my patience is wearing thin. Don't make me use threats."

Daria heard the hardness in Helen's voice, and saw it in her eyes. She knew from experience that threats would indeed come next, and that they would be effective threats. Logically, she knew that the possibility that the pill would actually cause her harm was small. If she refused to take it, the possibility that she would incur unfavorable consequences of some sort approached one hundred percent. She heard that little smartass voice inside her head saying, "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."

Slowly, she brought a hand up and took the pill out of Helen's hand. She looked up at her mother. "Well, I guess this is it. Mom, if you never see the real me again, remember that I loved you, in my own way, and that I was happy, in my own way, even if I didn't smile like the girls in the tooth whitener ads."

Helen seemed to feel a pang of doubt. She looked as if she were about to say something, but then her jaw tightened, and she just waited.

Her last hope gone, Daria looked back down at the cheery yellow pill in her hand. God, it even had a happy face molded into it. Placing the odious thing on her tongue, she shuddered at its bitter taste. She pulled the straw out of her orange juice, took a big gulp, and swallowed hard. "Here's to my brain on drugs." she said bitterly. She set the cup down on the table, shuddered again, and stared unfocused at a spot on Helen's upper arm. She wondered if the new, anti-depressed Daria would remember who she had once been. She wished she'd written herself a letter.

Helen started to say, "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" but thought better of it. She settled for "Finish your orange juice, sweetie, and we'll go." 

Daria looked at the cup for a second, picked it up, and stared down at the orange juice within. She licked her lips, raised the cup a further inch, then set it back down and pushed it away. "I may never be able to drink orange juice again." She pushed herself to her feet, holding to the table for a second to get her balance, and followed her mother away. She knew the pill couldn't possibly be affecting her yet, but she felt like she could hardly walk. And like she had swallowed a ticking time bomb, and there was nothing she or anyone else could do to save her.


	8. The Squirrelly Blondes Of Earth

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE SQUIRRELLY BLONDES OF EARTH

~*~

  
Daria noticed that Helen didn't seem to be headed back the way they had come. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"Well, I took the whole day off. I thought we could walk through the mall and do some shopping, just you and me. What do you think?"

Daria stared at Helen and began to compose a reply informing her mother in great detail just what she thought of her choice of mother-daughter bonding activity, and how much she looked forward to spending her last few minutes of undrugged mental clarity window-shopping in a mall. But what was the point? In a little while, she'd probably be enjoying it. She had waited too long to order that hollow tooth containing the cyanide capsule. 

"You just can't wait to see me turn into a homely version of Quinn, can you?" she asked bitterly. Without waiting for a reply, she turned and headed for the mall entrance.

Helen caught up to Daria and reached for her hand. Daria countered by going for a finger submission hold. Recognizing her peril just in time, Helen jerked her hand away. Daria pretended not to notice, plodding stolidly along, looking neither left nor right. She'd long known that Helen's reluctance to 'make a scene' in public allowed her to get away with unobtrusive little stunts like that.

Helen stopped to look at a window display of womens' shoes. Daria stopped also, but did not turn to look. She stood facing the direction they had been walking, toward the central court with its fountain, but her attention seemed to be directed inward. Helen shivered a bit.

After a minute, Helen continued on. Daria kept pace with her without seeming to see her. Once she lifted a hand and rubbed the side of her face, but her non-expression did not change. Helen stopped at another window. "What do you think of these blazers, Daria?" she asked. Daria stopped, looked at her, at the mannequins in the window, and back at her, but did not comment. 

"Let's go in here and look around," Helen suggested. Daria said nothing. Helen walked on towards the store's entrance, and Daria did the same. 

They entered the clothing store. Helen stopped to look through some racks of blouses by the door. Daria stood looking slowly around the store, her attention seemingly not directed at anything in particular. She moved occasionally to get out of the way of another shopper or to stay near Helen. When Helen came to a rack of blouses similar to what Daria usually wore, she saw that Daria was also looking at them, although not displaying any particular interest.

"Would you like to get some of these, Daria?" Helen asked.

"I prefer fifty percent cotton or more," Daria replied. 

Helen was careful not to show it, but she was happy to get any response at all. This was the first thing Daria had said since entering the mall.

Daria had been waiting for the pill's effects to manifest. She didn't notice anything yet, but that meant little. If she was looking for changes in how her brain worked, what was she watching with? A changing brain. And what was she to measure against? Her memories of how her brain used to work? It would take a fairly gross change to become obvious against that fuzzy a yardstick, but that was all she had for now. On the other hand, the harder she watched, the more likely she was to imagine something. That way lay madness.

Daria tried to relax. She thought of going to the bookstore, but that might be too distracting. A store full of womens' clothing provided a pretty uninteresting, undistracting background. The set of colors that seemed to be "in" this season helped by being more drab and unattractive than usual. She drifted toward a display of scarves whose more pleasing colors offered a little relief to her offended color sense.

Helen had been keeping an unobtrusive eye on Daria. She seemed to be in a better mood now. She stopped to look at a display of silk scarves, lingering over some bright florals and paisleys. Helen watched, fascinated. Daria looked so like a... a normal teenage girl. When she didn't seem inclined to buy a scarf, Helen suggested "Let's go over here and look at some jackets." Daria followed her mother without comment.

"These blazers are very nice, don't you think?" Helen prompted. "You can wear them with lots of different clothes. And look, they're half off." 

Daria looked at the rack of blazers. _It's obvious why they're marked down, _she thought._ They're in last season's colors. Quinn and the fashion club wouldn't be caught dead in them. Hmm… That shade of blue-green isn't bad. There probably isn't one in my size._

Helen held her breath. Daria worked her way around the rack and pulled out a blue-green blazer. She held it up and gave it a serious look, then took it off the hangar. She removed her green jacket. Helen clamped her lips tightly shut and blinked rapidly. Daria put the blazer on, buttoned it up, and walked to a mirror. Helen could hardly believe it.

Daria regarded her reflection in the mirror. _Hmm. Except for the bronze colored buttons and the tailoring, not so different from my regular jacket, just a bit dressier. The lapels are similar. It doesn't conceal my figure as well as my regular jacket though. _Daria snorted inamusement._ Get me, _she thought._ As if I'll drive guys mad with lust if they see me in this. _Daria glanced at the reflection of Helen behind her._ And I should probably let Mom buy me something before she wets herself._

"That looks good on you, Daria," Helen said, choosing her words carefully, "Don't you think?"

Daria turned before the mirrors, studying her reflection. "Mm… I guess." She knew she'd need new blouses to wear with it, meaning more damned shopping, and her boots… She imagined herself wearing this blazer and skirt with a mauve pullover and black zipper boots. _That would look good. I don't like flimsy boots, though. Boots like these, but with higher tops, would be nice._

"You'll need some blouses to wear with it," Helen ventured.

"Mm," Daria said again, "And some different boots."

Helen's heart went pitty-pat. Dare she hope that Daria would get rid of those awful combat boots? _Probably not,_ she thought. _Not right away, anyway. But wearing something different part of the time was a step in the right direction. _"The shoe department is right over here. Do you want to take a look?"

__

Should I put up some resistance here, just on principle? Daria wondered. _Not yet, _she decided._ They might accidentally have something I like, and Mom's in a sky's-the-limit mood right now._ "Okay," she said, and began unbuttoning the blazer.

Walking past some racks of dresses with what appeared to be integrated pinafores, they came to the shoe section. Daria's eye was caught by a pair of boots displayed on a shelf. She moved past Helen to examine them more closely. They were Dr. Martens' twenty-two hole lace-ups, with side zippers. Daria immediately began looking for a sales clerk. 

Helen saw the boots, and her heart sank. "Oh, Daria, no," she pleaded. "Get something different, something more stylish."

"These are different. They are stylish. Docs have been 'in' for a long time, and they don't show any sign of going 'out' any time soon. They're very big with young people, and a lot of older people too. I've been thinking about getting some ever since Sandi Griffin stopped wearing hers."

"Daria, they're almost exactly like the ones you're wearing, except for the height."

"Not even. These," Daria lifted one of her boots and patted it "Are American-designed, American-made mil spec paratroop boots. These," she went on, indicating the Docs, "are German-designed, British-made street chic boots. About the only thing they have in common, other than the bare fact that they're lace-ups, is that they're both very comfortable and very protective of your feet. That's the basic reason they're popular."

"But they look so… clunky."

"Yes. Deliberately clunky. Over-engineered clunky. In-your-face clunky. That's the Dr. Martens image. You see, old Doc came home from the Russian front with a bad case of frostbite, and he started designing boots for himself, just so he could walk. But the boots were so comfortable that…"

"All right, Daria, all right. Maybe later. Look, I'll get you these if you'll also pick out a pair of low-quarters. Okay?"

Daria looked at Helen. Helen was starting to get disconcerted when Daria said, "Okay," and turned to look over the shoes.

"I'll just go pay for these, and I'll be right back," Helen said. Daria nodded.

In line a few minutes later, Helen turned to find Daria holding a pair of shiny black shoes with straps, and some white socks. "That was quick." She looked closely at the shoes. "Those are… are those Mary Janes?" Daria nodded. "They look sort of… clubby." 

"They're Docs. They're comfortable. You know, I can't wear my size in some of those 'styles' they have here. I haven't spent years deforming my feet by shoehorning them into pointy-toed little torture devices like those you wear to work."

Helen sighed. "And I hope you don't have to, Daria, but don't be surprised if someday you do."

"It's a cruel world," Daria agreed, "but still, I'll be surprised."

As the items were being rung up, Helen turned to Daria. "What else would you like to look for, Daria?"

"Well, I was thinking bookstore and lunch, in no particular order."

"All right," Helen said, thinking that, as agreeable as Daria was being so far, after lunch they could shop for hours. "But while we're here, why don't we look at some dresses?"

Daria gave Helen a sharp look. "So that's your scheme, is it?" she snapped. "Get me stoned out of my gourd and then change my whole wardrobe? I don't think so!" 

Helen was startled. "What? Where did that come from? I just want to help you pick out some nice new clothes!"

"And throw out the not-so-nice old clothes?"

"I didn't say that!"

"Of course not—one step at a time, right? Turn up the heat slowly, so the frog doesn't jump out, right?"

Helen was alarmed. She'd clearly overestimated the pill's effect on Daria, and may have triggered a backlash of some sort. If Daria got angry enough, it might totally counteract any good the pill might have done. 

"Daria, I'm not going to throw out your old clothes… although you know that they're going to have to go sometime…"

"AHA! I knew it! That's it, I'm gone!" Daria grabbed her boots and headed for the exit.

Helen grabbed Daria's arm. "Daria! What's gotten into you? I said I'm not going to throw out any of your old clothes!" 

"Old clothes. I see. You buy me a jacket and a pair of socks, and they become my new clothes, and automatically, everything else I own becomes old clothes! Oh, that's devious, even for you! Well, if that's your game, take all this stuff back. I don't want it!" 

"Daria, stop it! I told you I'm not trying to get rid of your o- of any of your clothes."

"Oh, you're going to let Quinn do it? She'd love to." 

"No!"

"Or tell Dad to do it?"

"No, Daria!"

"And you're not going to twist my arm to get me to do it?"

"No, Daria. You can keep every article of clothing you own for as long as you want."

"Promise?"

"I _promise!"_

"Okay." Daria walked over to a rack and pulled out a light blue dress with a white faux pinafore sewn into it.

Startled, Helen asked, "What are you doing?"

"You said you wanted me to look at some dresses, didn't you? That's what I'm doing. Hand me those socks and Mary Janes."

At a loss for words, Helen held out the sack containing the items. Daria grabbed it and disappeared into the changing booth. _What just happened? _she wondered._ Daria had seemed to be calm and fairly co-operative, and the next minute she was totally paranoid, accusing me of having designs on her wardrobe. Not that I wouldn't love to throw those ugly outfits in the trash, or on a fire, but I'm not fool enough to actually do it. And then she switched right back to calm and co-operative again, just like switching a light on and off. Could it be because she's still angry about having to take the pills? _

Daria emerged from the dressing room. She wore the Mary Jane shoes, white knee socks, and the light blue dress with white pinafore. Helen instantly thought, 'Alice In Wonderland.'

Daria went over and stood before the mirror, and examined her reflection. She smiled and turned this way and that, and said, in a little-girl voice, 

"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! 

How I wonder what you're at! 

Up above the world you fly, 

Like a tea-tray in the sky. "

Then she giggled and curtsied to herself.

Daria had obviously made the same association. Helen couldn't help smiling. She went to stand beside her. "It's so nice to see you smile, Daria. Now, don't you feel better?" 

Daria grinned at Helen.

"How doth the little crocodile 

Improve his shining tail, 

And pour the waters of the Nile 

On every golden scale! 

How cheerfully he seems to grin, 

How neatly spread his claws, 

And welcome little fishes in 

With gently smiling jaws!"

She recited, and then grabbed Helen's forearm and bit it.

"Ow! exclaimed Helen, surprised rather than hurt, "Daria!"

Daria giggled again and ran back into the dressing room.

Helen noticed with embarrassment that several of the store's other patrons were staring at her. She went to the dressing room, opened the door, took Daria by the hand, and pulled her out. 

"Daria, behave yourself!" she said, her voice low but emphatic. "You're making a scene!"

Grinning mischievously, Daria replied,

"Speak roughly to your little boy, 

And beat him when he sneezes: 

He only does it to annoy, 

Because he knows it teases." 

Then, watching herself in the mirror and holding Helen's hand over her head, she did a pirouette, ending by staggering into Helen and almost knocking her down. This seemed to strike her as hilarious, and she broke out laughing. 

Helen was flabbergasted. This was not at all like Daria. She hadn't acted like this since—No, she was thinking of Quinn when she was a little girl. Daria had **_never_** acted like this. What the hell was wrong with her? 

Belatedly, it occurred to Helen that Daria might be having some sort of adverse reaction to the antidepressant pill she had taken. As soon as she thought it, she realized that had to be it, and cursed herself for not realizing it sooner. She had to get Daria out of here and back to Doctor Drake.

"Daria? Daria! I think we should leave now, sweetie. Why don't you…" she began.

"Okay!" Daria replied brightly, and ran out of the store, several tags flapping gaily from the dress she wore. Alarms sounded as she ran through the door into the mall.

A sales clerk walked up to Helen, frowning toward the exit. "Ma'am, the young lady has left the store without paying for the dress she's wearing."

Helen turned from the door to the clerk, thinking seriously unkind thoughts about her intellectual wattage. She bit off a sarcastic remark Daria would've been proud of and thrust her packages into the clerk's arms. Handing her a business card, she said, "Hold these till I get back. I have to go get her," and hurried out of the store. The clerk was about to shout something after her, but happened to spot 'attorney at law' on the card, and changed her mind.

Head swiveling back and forth, Helen headed down the mall toward the fountain court. There was no sign of Daria anywhere. Visions of malpractice torts danced in her head as she stalked along, muttering hair-curling imprecations. 

Shafts of sunlight sparkled off streams and sprays of water issuing from the many-orificed bronze fountain, and unhappy men holding down benches round about alternately gazed at its many whimsical figures and searched in vain for their credit-card bearing spouses. Helen stopped at the edge of its pool and looked down the other mall corridors that met here. She was about to pick a man at random and ask him if he'd seen Daria when the high-pitched giggling and shrieking of children echoing down the north corridor drew her attention. 

On a hunch, or maybe a bad feeling, Helen headed toward the sounds. Children were converging on a store about halfway along the corridor. The sounds of hilarity seemed to be coming from inside the store, and they seemed to be getting louder. Suddenly a small flock of colorful birds burst out of the store and flew off in several directions, accompanied by multiple shouts of childish glee. A figure in a dress that could have been Daria emerged and skipped across the corridor into another store, followed by a herd of house apes. Helen increased her pace. 

Sounds of merriment floated out of the store as more kids streamed in, then Daria emerged, followed by a gesticulating man, and the swarm of kids. He waved his arms and shook his fist, and she replied with a razzberry and moose antlers. Several kids ran past Helen carrying what might have been Fuzzy Wuzzy Wee Bits. 

As Helen closed the range on Daria, the latter seemed to be singing something, and dancing a bit to the music. The smaller children in her troop were dancing, too. A little closer, and Helen could make out

"… an onion patch.  
"I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch,

And all I do is cry all day!"

As Daria reached the last line, she mimed knuckling her eyes, and the smaller children imitated this too. Older kids hung back, but watched amusedly. Helen was surprised to find herself getting misty-eyed. That was just the way she'd taught it to Daria, many years ago. Daria hadn't sung that song since she was three years old. Helen was surprised that she remembered it at all.

Daria's back was turned to Helen's approach, but she didn't seem very surprised when a hand grabbed her upper arm. "Oh! Oh, help! Captain Hook's got me!" she cried melodramatically. "Oh Peter, save me!"

"Come on, Daria, sweetie, we need to go now," Helen said in the most soothing voice she could manage, while keeping a firm grip on Daria's arm and pulling her back the way they'd come. A chorus of boos and laughter came from the kids trailing along behind. 

"You may think you've got me now, you bad ol' pirate, but Peter will save me!" Daria proclaimed confidently. She wasn't putting up any resistance, though, for which Helen was grateful. The children chorused, "Yeah!" and searched the air above them for signs of Peter Pan's coming.

As they passed the fountain, Daria suddenly jerked her arm free of Helen's grasp and cried, "Oh, look. Pennies!" Quick as a bunny, she hopped into the pool, waded out toward the center, and started picking them up, and was soon surrounded by many of her entourage of mall apes. Helen called to her from the pool's edge, but to no avail. There were now quite a few other adults in the fountain court, searching for or calling to their children with variable success, or just watching the ruckus with various combinations of amusement and annoyance, and their number was growing. Helen began to worry that she might be pushed into the pool by the crowd. When she noticed a couple of mall security guards on the periphery talking into their walkie-talkies, she suddenly had something else to worry about.

Some distance around the pool's rim, Charles Ruttheimer III was also conscious of the gathering crowd as he did his best to record Daria's babbling and singing on his microcasette recorder. The crowd noise might drown her out, and the people around the edge of the pool kept him from maneuvering for position for a panty shot as she bent over to pick up coins.

Daria saw him standing there and pointed at him. "Hey, it's Chuckles Ruttmonger, the hundering third! Hiya, Chuckles!"

Caught off guard by the greeting, Charles smiled and waved. Several of the children hollered, "Hiya , Chuckles!" 

Daria's attention was caught by something on the fountain. "Oh, look! A frog!" she said, as if to herself. I wonder if it'll turn into a handsome prince if I kiss it?" She received a chorus of enthusiastic "yeah!s in reply.

Splashing over to where the bronze frog sat on its bronze toadstool, a fat stream of water issuing from its mouth, Daria attempted to put a liplock on it, with the result that her cheeks bulged out ridiculously and the water sprayed everywhere. The mall apes howled in delight.

Meanwhile, Jane and Trent Lane were passing the food court on their way to a music shop Trent occasionally browsed. Trent looked at his sister. "What's wrong, Janey?" he asked.

"Nothin'," she replied, glancing idly at a pretzel stand.

"Come on." 

"Oh, Daria was supposed to see a neurologist today. I'm just wondering how that went."

"A neurologist? What's wrong with her?" Trent asked,a trace of worry in his tone.

"I guess you could say it's a hereditary problem," Jane reflected.

"What kind of hereditary problem?"

"Her parents are insane and they're apparently trying to pass it on to her."

"Hmph," mused Trent, "Our parents are insane too, but they… what's that?"

"Sounds like a mini-riot down that way. Let's go check it out," Jane said as she increased her pace.

As they neared the fountain court, Jane saw a figure in a light blue dress who seemed to be attempting to climb the fountain. She was about to make an observation on the stupidity of such an attempt when the figure turned its head, and Jane saw who it was. "That's Daria!" she cried out, and began working her way toward the fountain as fast as she could. After a second, Trent joined her.

Arriving at poolside, Jane viewed with alarm Daria's totally un-Daria-like behavior. "Remind me never to go to a neurologist," she thought as she called out to Daria on the fountain. "Hey, Daria! Earth to Daria!"

Jane's voice caught Daria's attention. Gripping a bronze squirrel, she turned to Jane and said, 

"O, I have split the squirrelly blondes of earth,   
and danced with flies on splattered water wings!  
Moonward I've howled, and hugged the grumbling Smurf

And kissed a frog, and ate a thousand things  
You'd never dream of."

Most of the kids were listening to Daria's impromptu recital. Trent stood transfixed, as if listening to the reincarnation of one of the great Beatnik poets of the Golden Age. Daria had begun to climb the fountain statue, an overly busy thing resembling a stylized tree growing atop a rugged rock, infested with cute animals and fairy tale characters, most of them spouting water from some orifice or other. She seemed to be seeking a high podium to declaim from.

Helen was horrified to see her obviously impaired daughter climbing the slippery bronze monstrosity. "Someone get her down before she hurts herself!" she cried.

Charles Ruttheimer made an effort to climb the thing, but his foot slipped, and he could not stop himself from cracking his chin painfully and sliding into the pool. It was several seconds before he regained his feet, and he staggered as if he'd gotten his bell rung. 

Daria had somehow managed to get a one-handed grip on the Cheshire Cat figure's tail, and she gestured grandly to her growing audience with the other hand. 

"High on the spotlit wetness hanging there  
I've chased the pouting Quinn away, and flung

My screaming ass through footloose falls of air…"

At this, Daria either lost or relinquished her grip on the fountain and plunged several feet, into the more-or-less waiting arms of Trent and Charles. They broke her fall, but all three collapsed into the penny pool with a great splash, to the enthusiastic applause of her audience.

Daria managed to get to her feet while Trent and Upchuck were still floundering. Wet as a mad hen, she waded to the edge of the pool, put a foot on the rim, made a sweeping gesture, and continued,

"Up, up the endless stairs to level two,

I've hopped the unswept flight with sweaty face

Where never shark, nor even weasel flew;  
put out my hand… and touched the face… of Mom."

So saying, Daria reached out and laid her palm on Helen's cheek. Helen couldn't help smiling, but she also took a firm grip on Daria's wrist. 

A man in a suit with a Lawndale Mall pin over the pocket, identifying him as Thomas Thorne, approached Helen and held out a cell phone toward her. "Ma'am, the mall manager wishes to speak with you a minute," he said. 

With a sinking feeling, Helen took the phone. "Yes?" she said. She paused, listening, then said "yes," paused again, said, "very well," then "Yes, I will," then handed the phone back.

Helen turned to Daria, Jane, and Trent. "They want us to get Daria out of the mall as soon as possible to minimize further disturbance," she said. "I heartily concur. Jane, Trent, would you two help me get Daria back to the Doctor's office?

"Sure," Jane said. Trent nodded. 

This way," she pointed to a nearby mall entrance.

"No, wait!" Daria exclaimed, "I've got another one!" 

"Another time, Daria," said Helen, taking hold of Daria's arm. 

"No! No! I've got a million of 'em," she cried out, and broke free of Helen's grip. Jane and Trent each grabbed her by an arm. 

"Come on, Longfellow, save some for the anthology," Jane said.

"You scurvy dogs! Peter Pan is gonna swoop down and cut you all to pieces!"

"Can you carry her?" Helen asked them. 

"Allow me to assist," said Upchuck. He bent down and picked up Daria's feet.

"Hey!" said Daria.

Helen looked unsure for a second, but he was holding her legs together, and they did need a third person. She said, "Come on," and pushed open a door. Security men hurried to open the outer doors and hold them. Helen led the way, and Jane, Trent, and Upchuck carried Daria bodily out of the mall.

"Chuckles! Chuckles!" Daria cried out suddenly.

"Uh… yes, Daria?" he replied.

"Can you see my panties?" she asked.

This caught him off guard. "Uhh, no. I can't."

"Omigosh! Quick! Check and make sure I'm wearing some!" Daria shot back, wide-eyed.

Trent gave Upchuck a look that would stop a ghetto blaster. "Don't even think about it, dude."

"N-n-not even," Upchuck agreed.

"Switch with me," Jane ordered.

Chuck put Daria's feet down on the pavement. "I can walk," Daria said, a bit peeved.

"We're almost there," said Helen, hurrying ahead to unlock her car. 

"I wander if Daria will remember all this," muttered Jane.

This set Daria off again. 

  
o/ "So remember me in April, when Spring is in the air, And the bald-headed birds are whispering everywhere,  
And you see them walking southward in their dirty underwear…" o/ "Hey, is my underwear clean?

Helen held the door open. "Get her in here, quick."

Jane half-helped, half- stuffed Daria into the front passenger seat, then got in behind her. Trent hesitated, but Jane gestured to him to get in, so he did. Helen started backing out as soon as his door was closed, and they headed out of the parking lot, leaving Upchuck standing there bemused and dripping wet, and trailing a few die-hard Daria fans.


	9. Little Yellow Pill

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

CHAPTER NINE

LITTLE YELLOW PILL

~*~

As Helen pulled out of the parking lot, Jane leaned forward and asked, "What's with the getup, Daria? Prom dress? Disguise?"

Daria replied, "In disguise. In the skies." Her head began to bob back and forth, and she sang, 

o/"If you go out in the woods today, you better go in disguise,

There's lots of fun in the woods today, you wouldn't believe your eyes. 

Beneath the trees where nobody sees, they grease their knees as long as they please…"o/

Jane looked amused but concerned. "There was sure lots of fun at the mall today. What's up with that?"

"Mall, ball, small, hall, brawl, call, fall, that's all," Daria giggled.

"She seems to be having an adverse reaction to a prescription medication," Helen said. 

"A prescription did this? What was it, bennies? Acid?" Jane asked.

Daria sang, 

"And though she's not really ill, there's a little yellow pill. She goes…" 

Helen looked at Daria as if she wished she had an off switch. "An antidepressant."

Jane was shocked. "An antidepressant! What the h… what for? Mrs. M, there are a lot of Lawndale High students who might need an antidepressant, but Daria isn't one of them."

"Dr. Drake prescribed it for her on a trial basis."

Disgustedly, Trent exclaimed, "Drake! He's a Doctor Feelgood. Nobody leaves his office without a scrip, usually for the latest thing some major drug company is pushing."

Jane added, "Now that I think of it, Manson sent Tiffany Blum-Deckler to Drake a year ago, and she's been in a fog ever since. Poor kid. Used to be a math whiz."

Helen frowned. "Mrs. Manson is the one who recommended Dr. Drake for Daria."

Jane looked like she wanted to spit. "Manson? She's incompetent, and vindictive to boot. She sent me to self-esteem class seven times in a row!"

"She sent Daria to that class too…" mused Helen. "But you know how Daria is, always negative and pessimistic, never smiles…I just wish she could be a little happier, maybe even a bit funny sometimes…"

"Huh? Mrs. M, Daria is the funniest person I've ever met," Trent said. He gave the back of Helen's head a 'you moron' look.

"Daria?" Helen asked incredulously.

"Yeah, and she's happy, too, Mrs. Morgendorffer. She may not go around wearing a happy face all the time, and she may claim otherwise occasionally, but she's got a good life and a good future ahead of her, and she knows it," said Jane.

"Then why would Mrs. Manson…" 

"That b… witch. I don't know why, but it wasn't for Daria's benefit. Someone should do something about her. Hey, amiga, how're you doin'?"

"I must be hot as Dad's stew."

"Why do you say that, sweetie?" asked Helen.

"I'm sweating like a moose."

"That's water, honey. You fell in the fountain," Helen told her.

"Oh. Then I must be cold."

"We'll be home in a couple of minutes, and you can change."

"Uh, Mrs. M, could you drop me by my place? I'm kind of wet, too," Trent said.

"Sure, Trent."

Twenty minutes later, they were back in Helen's SUV. Daria wore her usual outfit. From her jacket she pulled a baseball cap and put it on, adjusting it in the mirror on the sun visor. The little sizer on the back of it was adjusted out to the last hole, but it was still obviously too small for her. A patch on the front of it said, "Red Fox Guano."

Helen saw the cap and said, "Oh Daria, you don't want to wear that old thing."

Daria smirked, "Latest thing. Waif magazine says manure is in this season."

"It's been my observation that manure is always in," said Jane. Daria chuckled. 

Helen looked over at her daughter. "Well, at least you seem happier, Daria. How do you feel?"

"Happy happy."

"Really?"

"Joy joy."

Helen glanced between the road and Daria a couple of times, unsure what she meant. Daria seemed to be nodding her head in time to some music only she could hear.

o/ "Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy,

"Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy…"

Jane and Trent exchanged a look that said they knew exactly what Daria meant.

o/ "Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy…"

Daria began hitting her head on the side window every time she said 'joy'.

"Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy…"

"Daria," cried Jane, "Don't do that!" She stuck her hand between Daria's head and the glass.

"Happy happy joy joy joy!

"Ow! Stop! "Ow!" Jane was surprised at how hard Daria was banging her head against the glass, and also at how massive her friend's head was.

"Happy happy…"

Realizing that Jane's hand was between her head and the glass, Daria attempted to hit her head on the dashboard, but was restrained by her shoulder harness. She stopped, and merely stared down into the footwell, obviously not happy.

Helen looked extremely upset. "Oh, Daria, what has he done to you?" 

Trent glared at Helen beneath a lowered eyebrow, but said nothing.

Jane looked at Daria and sadly shook her head. "I wouldn't want to be Drake when Daria gets straight again. Or Manson either."

"Helen growled, "Well, I'm going to take her back to Doctor Drake, and he'd better get her perfectly straight, or else kiss his license goodbye!"

Daria started up again. "They're coming to take me away, haha,  
they're coming to take me away, hoho, heehee, haha,  
to the Happy Home, with trees and flowers and flipping squirrels,

and fashion feebers that sit and snark and paint their thumbs and toes…"

"Here we are," said Helen. She parked in front of the office. Jane got out quickly and helped Daria out, unobtrusively keeping a hand lightly on her arm. Seeing that Daria appeared calm, Helen opened the door and held it for Jane and Daria, then left it to Trent.

Daria looked around the lobby and announced, "Welcome to It's a Nutty, Nutty, Nutty World. We're just nuts about nuts. Crunch nuts with your lunch. Buy 'em by the bunch. Send 'em to friends far away to munch." This drew smirks from Jane and Trent, and worried glances from other patients waiting there.

Helen went straight to the receptionist and said, "I want to see Dr. Drake. It's important."

The receptionist replied, "Dr. Drake is with a…"

Helen leaned over the counter and into her face. "Get him. **Now**."

Jane wished she could see Helen's face. The receptionist was out of her chair and headed down the hall in a jiffy. Helen grabbed Daria by an arm and set off right after her. Jane heard Daria exclaim, "Hey, wait! I forgot my squirrel hat!" as she disappeared around a corner.

~*~

Ten minutes later, Dr. Drake and Helen were seated in his office, for the second time that day. Helen asked, "So what's wrong with her?"

Tiny beads of sweat glistened on his upper lip. "Apparently she's unusually sensitive to this drug. You're certain she only took one pill? It's not possible that she sneaked some more while you weren't looking?"

Helen gave him a glare she usually used on Jake. "I'm certain. I practically had to force her to take the one."

"And she's had no alcohol or stimulants recently? No other mood elevators?"

"One small cup of coffee at breakfast this morning. No on the rest. Daria seldom even takes aspirin. She had a similar reaction to cough syrup when she was twelve, and she's distrusted all drugs ever since." Helen repeated her question, more insistently. "What is her present condition?" 

From one of the exam rooms came Daria's voice,   
o/"I tripped on a cloud and fell eight miles high,

I tore my mind on a jagged sky.  
And I just dropped in  
To see what condition my condition was in."o/

The expression on Helen's face made Dr. Drake think of a mother wolverine. He spoke quickly.

"Physically, she's fine. She's running a very slight temperature and her heart rate is slightly elevated. Those are likely related to her, ah, recent exertions. Mentally, her associative processes are working at greater than normal efficiency, and she's a bit manic. Other than that, she's completely normal. One of my staff is watching her all the time. We can expect the effects of the pill to wear off in three or four more hours." 

Helen rose and walked to Dr. Drake's desk, wrote her cell phone number on the back of a business card and handed it to him. "I have to go back to the mall to straighten some things out. Call me at that number if there's any change. **_Any_** change. And, Doctor," she shot him an intense look to emphasize her words, "She's likely to be quite unhappy with you when that pill wears off. The less she sees of you then, the better, I would think."


	10. The Slough of Despond

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

by Galen Hardesty 

CHAPTER TEN

THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND

~*~

As Helen parked in front of Dr. Drake's office, a woman came out his door and bounded off across the lawn. She was wearing the flowered print blouse and light blue slacks that marked her as one of Drake's staff, but the collar of her blouse was on top of her head, and she was showing considerable midriff. She was flapping her arms and making noises that might have been intended as bird calls. 

Helen got out of her car and stood staring after her. Another woman emerged from the office and looked around apprehensively. Seeing that the medical assistant was a considerable distance off, she pulled a chubby twelve or thirteen-year-old girl out of the office and the two of them hurried to a car. "There's no one else in there," she called to Helen, "Just some guy in the back crying." The two got in the car and drove away.

Alarmed, Helen hurried inside. The office seemed deserted. Papers and record folders were scattered about. Helen called out, "Daria? Daria!"

The sound of sobbing was her only answer. She followed it to the office where Dr. Drake had talked with her this morning and written out the prescription for Prohappia. There he sat behind his desk, a cup of water in one hand and a handful of pills in the other, sobbing. He raised the pills toward his mouth. 

"Stop that!" commanded Helen, stepping forward and knocking the pills from his hand. "Where is my daughter?"

"Damn," came a voice from behind her. Helen spun around. There sat Daria, in the chair she'd sat in this morning, wearing pretty much the same expression she'd worn this morning, staring intently at Drake. "I wanted to see him get his stomach pumped."

Drake put his face in his hands and wept as if his heart would break. Daria continued to watch him intently. Helen shuddered slightly at the expression on her face. "What in the world has been going on here?" she asked.

"Nothing much. We were just sitting here talking."

"And what happened to everyone else?"

"I guess the patients left when the staff started acting funny."

"Funny? Why were they acting funny?" Helen asked.

"Maybe it was the pills they took." Daria continued to stare at Dr. Drake, who continued to weep. Helen was feeling more creeped out by the minute.

"They took pills? Why did they take pills?" 

"They got depressed, so they took some antidepressants," Daria replied, still staring at Drake. "Some Prohappia."

Helen identified Daria's expression. It was vengeful. "Daria, why were they depressed?" she asked apprehensively.

"I dunno. We were just sitting around, talking philosophy." The corners of Daria's mouth turned up ever so slightly.

Helen felt a chill. She decided not to pursue the topic any further for the moment. "Come on, Daria, let's go home." She looked at Drake, and thought about all the pills of various sorts in this office. "Doctor Drake, it's time to go home now." she said.

He obediently followed them out, still weeping. Opening his car door, he turned and said to Daria, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"It doesn't matter," Daria replied. "Nothing matters." This brought on a fresh burst of sobbing as he got into his car. Daria got into the SUV, a faint, cold smile on her face. Helen waited till his Benz had left the lot before she started up her SUV and drove away.

~*~

Glancing over to where Daria sat, Helen saw that the cold little smile was gone from Daria's face, leaving an expression that closely resembled her characteristic deadpan, but that bespoke a bad mood to anyone who knew her well. Helen sought a pleasant subject for small talk as she drove homeward. 

"Good news from the mall, Daria. The management were pretty upset about the disturbance, and they were waving a long list of items that were shoplifted during that period, but after we reviewed the tapes from some of the security cameras, they had to admit that the only thing you could be said to have shoplifted was that dress you were wearing. And when I told them about the drug reaction, they admitted that even that charge wouldn't stick. After I said something about that fountain being a safety hazard, especially for children, they were begging me to take all the things we'd bought at no charge. Of course I insisted on paying. But they're considering becoming co-plaintiffs If I bring any suits."

Daria was silent for a couple of seconds, then said, unenthusiastically, "That's nice." After a few more seconds, she asked, "Did you get my outfit?"

Helen gave Daria a wry look. "Your old clothes, I suppose you mean. Yes, I did. And your boots, and even your socks. I also got your blazer and your new boots. It's all in the back."

Daria muttered something that might have been "old clothes." Helen said, "What?" 

"Thank you," Daria said.

Helen glanced askance at her daughter, but decided to accept the thank-you at face value. "You're welcome, sweetie," she said.

The silence began to lengthen. Helen was burning with curiosity about what Daria had said to Dr. Drake and his staff, but was afraid to ask. Daria would probably just repeat exactly what she'd told them, and Helen couldn't be sure she wouldn't react the way they had. Daria stared out the windshield, still looking unhappy.

"Daria, are you feeling all right?"

"Define 'all right.'"

"Come on, Daria." 

Daria sighed and looked out the side window at nothing in particular. After a few seconds she said, "I'm not in pain, and I don't feel like I'm about to throw up."

It was plain to Helen that Daria was holding something back. "But…?" she prompted. 

An angry look crossed Daria's face. "But I've had better days. I've been thoroughly screwed over by Manson, that damn doctor, and you, and I've made an utter fool of myself in public. I'm not quite my usual sunny self, okay?" She continued to stare straight ahead.

Helen felt Daria's words like a slap in the face. "Daria! I was just trying to do what was best for you! I had no way of knowing you'd have a bad reaction to Prohappia! Surely you can't blame me!"

Daria's head snapped around. "Yes, I can blame you! That pill should never have crossed my lips. You're my mother and you're supposed to take my side against people and accusations like that! But you didn't give half a minute's thought to the situation. You just implemented your standard procedure for any non-law-related problem. Pipe clogged? Call a plumber. Roof leaks? Get a roofer. Car making funny noises? Take it to the shop. Some asshole tells you your daughter is depressed? Drag her to Doctor Feelgood! Whatever it is, turn it over to a specialist and move on!

"I don't know what you expected me to do, Daria. I can't know everything. Sometimes I have to place my trust in experts."

"You wouldn't have placed your trust in Manson or Drake if they'd been expert witnesses against your client. But I'm just your daughter, so, hey! Whatever they say, right?"

"Daria, be fair! I can't hire a private investigator every time you bring a note home from school!"

"You could have asked around. Jane and Trent knew some stuff about both of them. I'll bet you know a lot of other people you could've asked and found out more. And two minutes on the Internet would have gotten you a checklist of symptoms of depression, and you would've seen for yourself that I don't fit the profile."

Helen looked straight ahead, blinking rapidly, fighting down her emotions. After several seconds, she said, in an unsteady voice, "You think I'm a bad mother. You think I'm so wrapped up in my work that I neglect my family. That I don't care. Don't you?"

Daria was also waging some internal struggle. Her expression was angry and upset, and she carefully avoided directing it at Helen, glaring instead into the footwell. "I think…" she paused and pounded the armrest with her fist, "I think we shouldn't be trying to have any kind of serious discussion until I can think straight again." 

Helen looked over at Daria, who didn't look back. She had seldom, if ever, seen her daughter this unhappy and upset. "I guess you're right, Daria. Let's just go home, and I'll fix you some hot cocoa."

Daria didn't look up, but did smile briefly.

~*~

As they entered the front door, Quinn stomped angrily up to meet them. Doing her best to project an aura of injured dignity, she demanded "Daria, why are all the kids in school calling me 'the cuckoo chick'?"

Daria fastened her attention on Quinn like a cat spotting a movement in the grass. With false casualness she replied, "Oh, I bribed them all to do it. It's just the latest in my unending series of evil schemes to ruin your life. You don't mind, do you?"

Something in Daria's look made Quinn's blood run cold. She didn't need Helen's 'zip your lip' and 'go away' gestures to decide to stay out of Daria's path the rest of the day.

Daria headed upstairs carrying her packages from the car. Helen called after her, "Come back downstairs when you finish putting your things away, sweetie. Your cocoa should be ready by then."

Quinn turned wide eyes from the loot-laden Daria to Helen. "You took her shopping? At the mall? Daria?"

"Yes, Quinn," replied Helen shortly.

"And now you're making her cocoa?" Quinn knew she was missing something here, and it included a shopping trip.

"I'll heat enough water for two cups, and you can fix yourself some."

Quinn wasn't interested in cocoa. "I heard there was some sort of a riot at the mall today. Did you see any of that?"

"Oh, yeah."

Quinn caught the tone of Helen's reply. "Daria was involved in that? What happened?"

Helen sighed deeply. "We took her back to the Doctor." 

Quinn had all her antennae out now, and she could tell that there was a lot that Helen wasn't saying. "And then what?" she asked.

Helen looked down into the pan of water and said nothing.

"Omigod! She started a riot there too?!"

Helen's head drooped, and she put a hand to her forehead.

"She **_did!"_** Eyes very wide, Quinn clapped a hand to her mouth.

Helen looked up at Quinn and her expression was weary but grim. "Quinn, Daria didn't start any riots. Just… minor disturbances. And it really wasn't her fault. She isn't feeling very well right now, and if you set her off, the next riot could involve bloodshed. Quite possibly yours. Now would be a good time for you to go to a fashion club meeting."

This was definitely unexpected. "Next meeting is tomorrow. Sandi and Tiffany have dates tonight."

Helen pulled a twenty out of her billfold. "Then why don't you go study with Stacy? Here, get yourselves a pizza or something."

Quinn's avarice was aroused. "We're all caught up on our schoolwork. If I had another twenty, we could go to a movie…"

Helen's expression hardened and she started to put the twenty away. "Never mind. There are some holes I need dug in the back yard…"

Quinn snatched the twenty and headed for the door. "We'll work something out. Thanks, Mom!"

"Quinn! You keep what I said about Daria to yourself!" Helen called after her. 

"Okay, Mom!" Quinn called as she hurried out the door. That stricture should be easy to work around. She needed to hook up to the grapevine and find out just what had happened. No telling how much damage Daria had done to her popularity this time.

~*~

Helen looked out toward the family room as she stirred the cocoa mix into the mug of hot water. Daria was sitting on the sofa. Helen carried the cocoa out to her.

As she came around the sofa, Helen saw that Daria had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She sat down next to Daria and handed her the mug of cocoa. Daria took a cautious sip, staring at the dark TV screen.

Helen put her arm around Daria's shoulders. Daria tried to pull away, but she was already at the end of the sofa. "Daria, is there anything I can do for you?" 

"You could send me to a boarding school in another state. Or another country. Somewhere where they never get news from Lawndale, where they'll never hear about what I did today. Somewhere where I can change my name and start over."

"Oh, Daria, don't be silly." 

"Too late for that," Daria muttered bitterly. "Waaaay too late for that." 

"Daria, you're awfulizing. You didn't do anything bad. You didn't hurt anyone or destroy any property. And I've seen lots of kids behave worse than you did in that mall."

"I humiliated myself in public. And I did it so spectacularly that the people who saw it will never forget it. I have to leave Lawndale, Mom. I can't live here any more."

"Daria, even if I thought that made sense, which I don't, we can't afford to send you to a boarding school, not if you want to go to college. You'll just have to grit your teeth, stick out your chin, and soldier on." Helen squeezed Daria's shoulder.

With what felt like a tremendous effort, Daria stood to her feet. She placed the mug on the coffee table, lay down on the left love seat with her face toward its back, taking up enough of it so that there was no place for Helen to sit, and pulled the blanket over her. "Then I'll have to finish high school via telepresence," she said to the back cushion.

Helen sighed. It hurt her to see her daughter like this, but, for now, there was nothing she could do. She reached over, picked up her briefcase, extracted from it a transcript, found her place, and began reading and making notes.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later, Daria groaned and started to roll over, but stopped when she realized that she was about to roll off the love seat. Cursing gravity under her breath, she sat up and gathered the blanket. Helen looked over at her.

"Are you feeling any better, sweetie? Can I do anything for you?"

Daria lay down on her other side and began arranging the blanket. "I feel achy all over. You can put me out of my misery. Never mind about the pain, just make it quick."

Helen said, "Come on, Daria, I'm serious. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Daria huddled unresponsive for a few seconds, then slowly straightened up and pulled the blanket down off her head. "Yeah. Yes, there is. You can take a good long look at me. This is what depression really looks like. This is me with a chemical imbalance. Take a real good look, and file it away for future reference." She gazed into her mother's eyes for a few seconds, a portrait of misery. "Oh, and you might also remember how I got this way." Daria curled up again into a fetal position and pulled the blanket back over her head, adjusting it from within until she was completely covered from head to toe.

Some indeterminate time later, the light suddenly brightened in Daria's warm fuzzy world of funk. She opened her eyes and saw a hand holding a telephone at the entrance of her blanket cavern. Helen's voice said, "It's Jane."

Daria stared unmoving at the object, but it didn't go away. "Take the phone, Daria," her mother said, and gave it a little shake, presumably to help her identify it. 

With a weary sigh, Daria brought up a hand and grasped the thing. She brought it somewhat near her face and produced a minimal-effort vocalization, which sounded like "mmm." 

"Hey, amiga, glad to hear you aren't dead yet. How're ya feelin?"

Daria peered out through her fuzzy cave entrance. Helen was heading toward the kitchen. She cast a look over her shoulder at Daria, then walked through the arched doorway. Daria said, "Like I wish I was dead." 

Jane waited, but Daria said nothing further. "How much do you remember from this afternoon?" she asked.

"I remember everything with crystal clarity. That's why I wish I was dead."

"Aw, c'mon, Daria. I think you broke your mom of poking pills down you, at the very least. That's gotta be worth something."

"I recited bad poetry in public, Jane. I sang in public. I even danced. Not to mention the Shari Lewis impression in the toy store, and that unnameable horror at the fountain. I made a gibbering fool of myself in front of half of Lawndale, and they'll be retelling the story for fifty years to come. Life is a burden I can no longer bear."

"Daria. Don't even joke about that. Besides, I know you too well. I know you'd never let the responsible parties get away with doing that to you. You're going to make them rue the day they messed with Daria Morgendorffer, and I'm going to stand around and watch and smirk wickedly." 

There was silence on the line for a couple of seconds, and then Daria replied, "Yeah, you're right. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna kick ass and take names. And you're going to drive the getaway car. Can you borrow Trent's car now?"

"I'm pretty sure I can. I see the keys and I don't see him."

"Okay. Give me ten… no, fifteen minutes, then come over. Park two houses down, turn off the lights, and wait.

"O-oh, goodie! "I'm lovin' this already! What are you gonna do?"

"I'm going to fix myself a cup of tea and put on my Masked Avenger costume."

"No, I mean after I pick you up?"

"Like I said, kick ass and take names. I think I'll start with some names. See ya in fourteen." Daria switched off the phone, threw the blanket off her, and sat up. Her limbs felt like lead. Actually, all of her did. She forced herself to stand and walk to the kitchen, through air that seemed as thick as syrup. 

Helen had the table covered with notes and documents. She looked up as Daria came in. "I'm glad you're feeling better, sweetie."

"I wish." Daria laid the phone on the counter and got a small pan out of a cabinet under the range. It seemed to weigh fifty pounds.

"Well, you look like you're feeling better."

"No, I don't." Daria ran some water in the pan and set it on an element to heat.

Helen didn't know how to respond to that. "Uh, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to fix myself some tea and go up to my room." Daria knew she wouldn't be able to keep herself going through sheer willpower for much longer unless she could somehow drag herself out of the crater the pill's aftereffects had left her in.

"That sounds nice. Some of that Beddie-Bye tea?"

"No way. I'm already depressed. I don't want to go catatonic. I'm thinking Crimson Zonker." Daria took a small red box off a shelf, removed two teabags from it, and dropped them in a large mug. As she put the box back, she noticed the box of ginseng tea behind it. She hesitated, then pulled out this box, opened it, took a tea bag from it, and added it to the mug. She started to return one of the Crimson Zonker bags, but decided not to.

"Mom, do you still have those St. John's Wort capsules? Can I have one?"

Helen looked up from her paperwork and smiled. "Sure, honey, but just one."

"Okay."

While she waited for the water to boil, Daria found the bottle of herb capsules and got one out. Then she poured a glassful of cold coffee, adulterated it with milk, and washed the capsule down with it. As soon as little bubbles started to form on the bottom of the pan, Daria poured the hot water into the mug and set the pan on top of it as a lid. She drank more of the cold coffee while she waited for the tea to steep.

After dunking the tea bags up and down a few times in the tea and pressing most of the liquid out of them, she discarded them and stirred some honey into the tea. Daria sipped the tea as she headed up to her room. Herb tea and coffee were about all they had around the house in the way of mood elevators, unless one wanted to count Blast Me Cola. Daria usually avoided that because something in it made her teeth feel like they were starting to curl. She didn't know whether it was the extra caffeine or not, but she didn't like the sensation. If the tea didn't elevate her mood sufficiently, she thought, she'd think about where to attach the electrodes when she had Manson strapped into the interrogation chair. 

~*~


	11. The Masked Avenger

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

by Galen Hardesty 

Chapter Eleven

THE MASKED AVENGER

~*~

It was full dark, but the streetlights were on. Jane was keeping an eye out for Daria as she sat in Trent's blue Ford on Glen Oaks, but the rap on her window made her jump. Looking out, she saw nothing but the houses across the street. Puzzled and somewhat alarmed, she looked around. The rap came again on her driver's side window. Jane whipped her head around, but again, there was nothing to be seen but the empty street and the houses on its other side.

"Daria, I know that's you. Come on and get in if… Aahh!" Jane's sentence broke off as a black form was suddenly standing there, right by the window.

"What's the matter, Jane? You said you knew it was me," Daria inquired as she removed a black ski mask.

"I was, uhh, worried you were gonna scratch the paint," Jane replied lamely, as Daria walked around the car and got in. "Geez, you weren't kidding about the Masked Avenger costume, were you?"

"Low observability. Can't hurt, might help." Daria was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and black jeans, with her usual boots. Her hair was secured in a bun in the back. 

"So, where to, Captain Midnight?"

"The office park on North Main. I have an appointment with Dr. Drake."

"Think he'll be there?" Jane asked.

"Ehh… if he isn't, I'll leave him a note or something."

"So," said Jane, as she headed for Main Street, "this guy prescribed you an antidepressant, huh? It certainly produced results."

"He ain't seen nothin' yet. I'll show him results. The very latest development, he said. First of a new class of drugs, he said. Fast-acting, he said." 

"Well, he wasn't lying about the fast-acting part," Jane pointed out.

Daria was on a low-volume rant. "Increase my neurotransmitter level. Reuptake inhibitor. As if I didn't already have more neurotransmitters than I know what to do with. Incompetent jerk."

"You shoulda told him that."

"Yeah. I got the highest IQ ever recorded at Lawndale High, I shoulda told him. I'm up to here in neurotransmitters, I shoulda told him. They dribble out my ears when I walk, I shoulda told him."

"Yeah, that's tellin' 'im. What are you going to do tonight?"

"I'm going to look through his records of patients from Lawndale High and other schools and see who referred them and what treatment they got. I'm going to try to link that to kickbacks from drug companies and look for evidence that he paid 'finder's fees' to school councilors. I'll note anything I find so Mom can subpoena it."

"Cool."

Daria spun around. Trent was in the back seat with his acoustic guitar. 

Daria shot Jane an accusing look. Jane shrugged. "I didn't know he was there."

"I just came out to the car to get in some undisturbed guitar practice," Trent said.

"Trent, you were sleeping," Jane pointed out.

Trent smirked and lifted the guitar. "I didn't drop it."

"Great," groused Daria, "another witness to deal with. Another hole to dig. Take the next right."

As they drove past Colonial-styled brick doctors' and dentists' offices, Jane asked, "How are you going to get in? You know it's gonna be locked up tight."

"I have my lockpicks with me if I need 'em," replied Daria. She knew that Drake had forgotten to lock up when he'd left in tears earlier in the evening. "but I'm going to try to open the door by telekinesis first." Daria was less than confident of her ability to pick a modern lock such as these offices were likely to have, but there was the exam room window around back that she'd unlatched earlier, if it came to that. 

"You need any help?"

"No. I'm just going to locate some files. Besides, this is a felony. If I get caught, I don't want to drag you down with me."

"Flapdoodle. We could just as easily get caught waiting for you."

"It's best if you don't wait. Drive by once on the off chance I can't get in, then go away and come back in about fifteen minutes. If you do park and if a cop comes by, Trent, you just stick your tongue down Jane's throat. He'll tell you to move on, and you can come back by for me later."

Jane made a face. "Eewww! Daria, you're my best and only friend and all that, but I don't like you _that_ much."

"That's the one, ahead on the right. Don't pull into the parking area, just let me out at the street." Daria slipped the ski mask back on. As Jane slowed and stopped, she got out, thankful that the dome light in Trent's car was burnt out. She closed the door as quietly as possible and the car pulled away. 

Daria jogged across the parking area to the entrance. She eased the door open and listened at the crack. Hearing nothing, as she'd expected, she opened it wider and slipped inside. Pulling out a small flashlight, she found her way back to Dr. Drake's office. Crossing to the file cabinets, she quickly found the records she wanted and copied several of them on the copier, which the Doctor and his messed-up staff had conveniently failed to shut off for the night. Then, returning them to their files, she took a gym sock from her pocket, carefully wiped every surface she'd touched, and left as silently as she'd come.

Daria waited inside the front door, scanning the street through the crack until Jane and Trent returned. Then she darted out, slipped into Trent's old car and quickly but quietly closed the door. "Mission accomplished," she said.

"Is that it?" Jane asked. "You wanna go home now?" 

"I need to go one more place, if you're up for it," Daria replied.

"I was born up for it. What's the mission?"

"Laaaaawwndale Hiiigh."

~*~

"Come on, Daria, we've all heard about Li's legendary security system. Tell me how you got past it," Jane wheedled as they rolled homeward through the suburban night.

"If I tell you, you'll lose some of your awe of my superhuman abilities."

"No, I won't. Cross my heart. But I might have to do my nails next time you need a getaway driver if you don't."

"Oh, all right. It's really very simple." Daria yawned and rubbed her face. "I know which electrical circuit powers the security system, so I just tripped the circuit breaker for that circuit."

"That's it? Waitaminnit… How'd you get inside to trip the breaker without setting off the alarm?"

Daria blinked and shook her head. She was getting sleepy. "Didn't have to. There are a couple of outside outlets on that circuit. I just went behind a certain bush and plugged this into one of them, shorted the circuit, and tripped the breaker." She held up a modified electrical plug with no cord attached, the cord end of which had been wrapped with electrical tape.

"Ghod, that's brilliant! How'd you find out about the electrical circuit, though?" Jane asked. 

"I looked it up on the blueprints at the county records office. There's an up-to-date set in the maintenance room, if you can get to them." Daria yawned again. "It's not like I'm the only one who can do it, though. I ran into Andrea in there once, and she says she knows of Upchuck and the Head guy getting in."

"The Head guy?"

"You know, that nerdy kid that was in self-esteem class with us."

"Oh, yeah. How did they get in?"

"Andrea didn't say," said Daria.

"In my day, we used to come in through the crawlspace. There's a hatch that opens into one of the janitors' closets," Trent put in.

"Trent! You bad boy! You never told me you used to break into school," Jane exclaimed. 

"You never asked me."

"The bars on the crawlspace entrance are wired into the alarm system now. You can still come in that way, if you bring a couple of bypass wires with alligator clips, but you can set off the alarm if you're clumsy. I'd rather not crawl in the dirt," Daria said. 

"Not to mention the cobwebs," Trent said. "So you just walk right through the door, huh? Cool, Daria." He strummed a few chords on his guitar, then sang,

o / "Out of the night when the moon is shining bri-ight

comes a burglar known as Daria.

This bold renegade carves a 'D' with her blade

A D that stands for Daria." o /

Daria tried in vain to stifle a giggle. "Jane, can't you get him to shut up?"

Jane grinned. "Sorry. It's kind of his car. Anyway, you look like you could use a laugh."

Trent continued,

o /"Daria... the fox so cunning and free...

Daria... she makes the sign of the 'D'

Daria! Daria! o /

By the time they pulled up in front of 1111 Glen Oaks Lane, Daria was blushing a bright pink. She picked up her ski mask and turned to her friend. "Thanks, Jane, for aiding and abetting. And thank you, Trent, for, uh, letting Jane steal your car."

"Wanna go with us for pizza? The night is young," Jane proposed. 

"Not for me. I gotta get inside quick or I'll wake up tomorrow morning on the lawn. I'm really thrashed." Daria waved and headed up the walk.

Before she reached the door, it opened. Quinn looked past her at the car with its departing troubador. "What was _that?"_

"My theme music." Daria pushed past Quinn into the house, suddenly staggering with weariness.

"Daria, where have you been? And why are you dressed like that? You look like a burglar!"

"Burglar? Whatever makes you say that?" Daria shifted her arm to press the papers under her sweater tighter to her stomach, and the ski mask fell to the floor.

Quinn stared at it, alarmed. "Oh, lord. Daria, what on earth have you been doing?"

"Just looking up a few things." Daria tried to pick up the ski mask, but almost lost her balance and had to grab the banister to stay on her feet. 

"Daria? Is that you?" Helen called from the kitchen entryway. "Dinner's… why are you dressed like that?"

Seeing that Helen was coming, Daria lifted her sweater and pulled the copies she'd made out of her waistband. "Here," she said, handing them to her mother, "Drake gettin' kickbacks fum drug cumnies. Paid Manson to send stoonts to 'im."

Helen's practiced eye scanned the papers. Expressions of surprise and anger chased each other across her face. "This is… Daria, where did you get these?" she asked.

There was no answer. Helen looked around. Daria was seated on the sofa, apparently unlacing a boot. Helen walked over and tapped her on the shoulder. "Where did you get these, Daria?"

Daria's head bobbed once, but she didn't straighten up. "In a cavern, in a can…" she mumbled.

"What?" Helen grasped Daria's shoulder and pulled her to an upright sitting position. "Where did you get these documents?"

Daria tried to raise her head. "Strange thing dog did in the ni…" she murmured, trailing off to silence. She sagged into a reclining position on the sofa.

Helen reached down and shook Daria's shoulder. "Daria! Answer me!"

"I'm green, I'm gree…" Daria mumbled, then her head rolled to the right. No amount of shaking or shouting could get another syllable out of her. 

Helen held a hand over Daria's nose to check her breathing, then rested it on her forehead to check for a fever. Feeling none, she stood gazing down at her daughter in concern. "Quinn, take her boots off, then come in to dinner," she said. Grumbling under her breath, Quinn knelt to comply.

~*~

As Helen came downstairs the next morning, the aromas of coffee and sausage drifted up to her from below. Entering the kitchen, she saw Daria, still in her black jeans and sweater, cooking a very large amount of breakfast.

"What in the world… well, good morning, Daria. It's good to see you awake. What's with the feast?"

Daria looked up from scraping a large quantity of scrambled eggs from the skillet onto a platter. "Hi, Mom. I'm really hungry this morning for some reason, and I figured I might as well make enough for everyone."

Helen poured herself a mug of coffee. "Well, you did miss dinner last night. Did you sleep well?"

"Pretty well, I guess, considering where I slept. I had a dream about wandering through dark tunnels looking for something, that went on way too long." Daria removed a plate of turkey sausage from the microwave and carried it to the table.

A less cheery expression came over Helen's face. "Daria, those papers you gave me last night, most of them had to have come from Dr. Drake's office. Did you break into his office and go through his files?"

Daria loaded the toaster and poured herself a cup of coffee. "No, I didn't break in. He left the door unlocked. I just walked in. The file drawers weren't locked either. The staff must have been in a hurry to leave yesterday."

"Daria, surely you know that's still illegal. What in the world were you thinking?"

Daria paused and tried to recall. "Ordinarily I could tell you, but yesterday is… confused, to put it mildly. I remember doing it, but it just seemed like the right and obvious thing to do at the time. I saw some things in Manson's office, and some checks from drug companies on Drake's desk, and I figured he was getting kickbacks from drug companies and bribing school counselors to refer students to him. Going back and getting the goods on him was a no-brainer."

"No-brainer is right! Do you have any idea how many laws you broke?"

Daria carried her coffee and toast back to the table and sat down. "Uh, just a couple that I can think of, unless you count lurking with intent to creep."

"This isn't funny! Have you no conception of what could have happened to you? What could still happen to you?"

Daria looked up from loading her plate. "I'm starting to. But yesterday, the thought literally never crossed my mind." She ate a forkful of scrambled eggs and speared a piece of sausage.

Helen raised a hand to her forehead and stared out the window in one of her 'suffering mother stressed to the limit' poses. "I don't know what I'm going to do when the police come to get you. I don't even know if I can keep you out of jail pending trial."

Daria reluctantly paused her attack on breakfast. "Oh, now you're being insulting. You don't really think I'd leave evidence, do you? There's no sign that anything happened at all. The only way they might possibly find out is if Quinn blabs." She took a drink of orange juice. "And if they did come for me, you'd just tell them I was under the influence of a prescription drug and couldn't stop myself. Which is true. Prohappia gave me an irresistable urge to see Dr. Quack behind bars."

Helen shot Daria an angry look. "Daria, if you think you can throw a fit and run wild and blame it all on that one little pill and get away with it, you're crazy. That medication has passed the world's strictest set of tests for drugs. It wouldn't be on the market if side effects like that were possible." She looked away as if thinking, then looked back at Daria again. "If the police don't get you, maybe I should do something to convince you that you can't do just anything you want because you're smarter than most people."

Daria put her fork down and locked eyes with Helen. "Mom, if you think I wanted to do any of those bizarre things I did yesterday, you're the crazy one. I told you I wasn't clinically depressed. I gave you facts. I reasoned with you. I begged and pleaded. You practically rammed that pill down my throat with a poke stick. What happened as a result was in no way my fault, and I won't accept any blame for it. If you feel I should suffer the consequences of my evil deeds on top of the public ridicule I'm already facing, then call the law and turn me in." Her expression was suddenly as hard and cold as granite. "Just count the cost before you do. Now I have to shower and get ready for school. The police can find me there." 

  
Daria headed out of the kitchen, but stopped as she passed Helen. "Oh, here's a printout I got off the Internet this morning." She pulled a folded piece of paper out of a pocket. "The FDA has just rescinded their approval of Prohappia pending further tests, because of many reports that people with normal and higher intelligence are having exaggerated reactions to the drug. It seems that all the original test subjects came from a trade school for the learning impaired." Daria handed the paper to Helen. "Note the date… three days ago." 

~*~

Daria was fastening her skirt when there was a knock at her door. "What?" 

Helen opened the door a crack, then about halfway. "Daria, I want to talk with you," she said in a conciliatory tone.

Daria looked at her for a second, then said, "Come in."

Helen entered as Daria sat down on the bed and began putting on socks and boots. "Daria, we sort of got off on the wrong foot this morning. When you find out your daughter has been committing felonies, it's sort of disturbing." She held up the paper Daria had given her. "But if this is true, then maybe you didn't do those things deliberately." 

Daria looked up from tying a bootlace. "'Maybe?' Two things here. First, if you know anything about my personality, such as it is, you'd know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I would never willingly sing, dance, ad lib bad poetry, or in any other way act a fool in public. I loathe looking foolish and being embarrassed so badly that even seeing other people being embarrassed makes my stomach knot up. I hate it with every fiber of my being.

"Second, when I gave you those papers last night, it had not occurred to me that having them in my possession was prima facie evidence that I'd committed a crime. That alone should completely convince you that I wasn't in my right mind at the time."

Helen stood there, considering Daria's words. The more she turned them over in her mind, the more obviously true they seemed.

"All right, forget the maybe. You didn't do those things deliberately. Sweetie, I'm sorry I doubted you. I hope you don't think I'd ever want to see you in jail, for any reason. I only want what's best for you."

"Does that mean you're going to start trusting me and taking my side, at least until you have good reason not to? That you're going to start really listening to what I say, and giving me the benefit of the doubt if you have one?"

"I wasn't quite that bad, was I?" Helen asked.

"Well, look at it from my perspective. You didn't hesitate for a minute to take the opinion of Manson and Drake over that huge battery of tests I took at Quiet Ivy and Dr. Millepieds' expert analysis. Jean-Michel is recognized as a top man in his field, and Manson is generally known to be incompetent. And just now you were assuming that I acted the way I did yesterday because I'm just no good. I'm not exactly feeling loved and protected here."

Helen looked down at Daria's ugly rug and sighed deeply. "You're right. I've been treating you like you're insane. How could I have gone so far wrong? I was just trying to be a good mother and do the best I could for you." She looked back up at Daria. "I would never think you were no good, Daria. I love you. But when you come home dressed like a burglar and practically admit to breaking and entering, that's kind of a shock to a mother's system."

A small smile crept onto Daria's face. "Okay, I'll give you that."

"What do you think I should do, Daria?" 

"Well, start out by assuming that I'm not clinically depressed or otherwise demented, and get my side of the story before you do anything." Daria's smile took on a slight wicked tinge. "And then do what you do best. Sue the bastards."

Helen smiled a similar smile. "I think that's doable. It might even be highly remunerative." Helen took a step toward the door, then stopped. "Daria, how sure are you that you didn't leave any evidence last night?" 

"Well, I didn't want to alert the prey that they're being stalked. I didn't break to enter. I didn't take anything except those few sheets of copier paper. I left everything just the way I found it, and I didn't leave any fingerprints. On the off chance that there was a security camera I didn't see, I worked in the dark and wore a mask. I'm pretty sure."

~*~  



	12. Howling Mad Morgendorffer

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

by Galen Hardesty 

Chapter Twelve

HOWLING MAD MORGENDORFFER

~*~

  
After she'd left Daria's room, Daria heard Helen knock on Quinn's door. Standing near her own door as she quietly slipped on her jacket, she heard Helen warn Quinn not to talk to anyone about her nocturnal activities.

As Daria slipped on her book bag and prepared to head out, she heard Quinn muttering to herself. "…house full of crazy people. Daria practically tears down the mall, terrorizes the shrink, and then goes back out after dark and burglarizes his office, and Mom's worried about ME! Daria can be a one-girl crime wave, but I can't even talk about it! Does that make any sense at all? Oh, _why _couldn't I be an only child?"

Daria stepped out of her room and into Quinn's. Her sister was primping and ranting to her mirrors. She turned, startled at Daria's entrance. "What do you want, you… midnight madwoman?" she demanded.

"I come to clarify the mysterious, Quinn, to illuminate the obscure. I come to reveal the pathway to riches, and to save you from a lifetime of terror and misery."

Quinn made a face. "Eeww! You sound as crazy as you did last night, if not more. What do you mean, the pathway to riches?"

Daria smiled a pleasant little smile. "If Mom suddenly had several million dollars, you could probably get your hands on quite a bit of it, couldn't you?" Daria asked.

Quinn smiled. "Oh, I think so." 

"I'm sure you could. I'll make this as simple as possible, and just touch briefly on the two main scenarios for now. Scenario one is you do what Mom said, and keep your mouth shut. Mom wins a huge case, and earns herself a huge fee, and we all live happily and wealthily ever after. Simple enough?"

"Yeah…"

Daria continued, "Okay. Scenario two. You tell only your very best friends, in strictest confidence, what you know and what you think you know about what your crazy cousin did last night. The story is all over town by sundown, of course. Maybe I get arrested. Maybe I just get expelled and sued, which is to say, Mom and Dad get sued. Either way, the people Mom would have won that huge case from have time to get rid of the evidence and get their sith together. Mom gets no huge fee, and you get your fashions from garage sales and thrift shops the rest of your time in high school, and there's no college fund afterward."

Daria's expression darkened and an ominous tone crept into her voice. "But that's not the worst of it. I won't get to go to college either, and I'll blame you for that. And I'll get you for it. But consider the sub scenario where I do a stretch for burglary. Think about that. Me in a little cell, with nothing to do for years but think of what I'm gonna do to you when I get out. And I will get out one day, Quinn. And I will find you. And who knows what interesting stuff I will have learned from my fellow inmates in all that time. Just imagine."

"Daria, stop it! You're scaring me! I wasn't gonna say anything! Cross my heart!" 

"Well, that's good, Quinn, that's really good to know. That means you can start looking forward to Mom having so much money she won't care how much you spend on clothes. But don't totally forget that other scenario, just in case you're tempted. Me in prison, learning all the interesting ways to hurt people that anyone else in that prison knows, and getting tougher, and meaner, and more vicious by the day, and thinking about what I'm gonna do when I get out. Neither of us wants that, right?

"R-right."

"Right. Well, gotta go. You have a good day, Quinn. I'll be thinking of you." Daria patted Quinn on the shoulder and ambled out into the hall. Quinn half-collapsed onto the seat at her vanity, and looked in the mirror. She began applying more blusher with a trembling hand. She was looking very pale all of a sudden.

~*~

As Daria neared the Lane house, Jane Lane walked out to meet her. "Hey, Amiga, did you make it into the house last night, or did you sleep on the lawn?" Jane asked.

"Just barely. I passed out on the sofa."

"Guess you really were thrashed. You're looking well-rested this morning, though."

"I should. I slept for about eleven hours. I wish I could sleep through this whole day, and I'll probably wish that a lot harder once I get to school."

"You're such a pessimist, Daria. It'll be fine. Li will probably want you to start a poetry club."

"I have friends in the joint, Lane. How many friends do you have in the cemetery?"

"Ooh, touchy! Maybe you do need a bit more sleep."

Daria sighed. "Jane, just keep in mind today that there's nothing on earth I hate and loathe as much as public humiliation."

Jane gave her friend an anxious look. "You may be in for a rough day, amiga."

"Exactly. It's possible that I may lose my temper at someone today, Jane. I hope it's not you."

As they arrived at Lawndale high, things seemed pretty normal, although it seemed to Daria that there were more glances than usual directed at her. They passed the fashion club huddled in their usual preschool spot just inside the main entrance. Stacy shot them a quick big-eyed glance, but the others seemed not to notice. They visited their lockers and proceeded to Mr. O'Neill's class without incident. 

About a minute before the bell, Jodie came hurrying in, looking like she'd already put in half a day at something, which was usual for Jodie. Taking her seat, she turned to Daria. "I heard about a bunch of kids running wild at the mall yesterday, Daria, and your name was mentioned. What's that about?"

"It's a long story, Jodie. I'll try to give you a condensed version at lunch. Basically, I had a bad reaction to a prescrip…" Daria had her sentence cut off by the beginning of class.

O'Neill's class was taken up by other students reading their animal stories. They were all bad in varying degrees, and especially awful was one whose author was apparently trying to top Daria's baby-bird story. The protagonist, a homeless kitten, was put through a succession of ghastly yet uninteresting misfortunes, from which its tragic end beneath the wheels of a school bus came as a blessed relief to the audience. The story's only redeeming feature was that Mr. O'Neill was obviously distressed by it.

On the way to history class, Daria was definitely getting some fishy looks from knots of students who were huddled together discussing something. In class, Kevin Thompson seemed to find her much more interesting than Mr. DiMartino's presentation on the Russo-Japanese war.

After history class, as Jane was getting her science text and notebook, Daria definitely heard her name mentioned, by several people. She also heard the words "mall" and "fountain" more than once. 

When Jane was finished, Daria hurried to her locker, anxious to get out of the hallway and away from the staring eyes. As she was dialing in her combination, she could hear in the background the approach of Kevin and several of his cronies. She thought nothing of this until Kevin spoke up.

"Hey look, guys, it's Howling Mad Morgendorffer! Nice poetry there, Howling Mad!" The other players dutifully laughed along with Kevin, even though he'd almost certainly stolen the joke, such as it was, and they probably knew it. Daria gritted her teeth, ignored the moron, and opened her book bag. 

But Kevin was never one to quit while he was ahead. "Hey, Howling Mad! Wanna come to the party this Saturday? Wear a t-shirt and we'll throw some pennies in the pool!" Daria's head snapped around, but Kevin had already passed by, accepting a high five from a sycophant.

Daria glared at Kevin's back as she slid a book into her locker and let her book bag drop to the floor. Jane had caught a bit of her expression and could tell she was highly torqued.

"Hey, don't let jock itch boy get to…" she began, when Daria lunged at Kevin's back with the speed of a striking rattlesnake. There was a cry from Kevin, and then Daria was back at her locker, picking up her book bag as if nothing had happened, and Kevin was bent backward in an agonized bow, making strangled squeaking sounds of pain.

"Very impressive, Morgendorffer!" Jane exclaimed, watching Kevin's teammates awkwardly trying to assist him, and causing him more pain in the process. "That's the first time I've ever seen an atomic wedgie done with a jockstrap!"

"I hope they have to cut it off him with a Jaws of Life tool," Daria snarled as she stalked off down the hallway in the opposite direction.

Jane hurried to keep pace. "How in the world did you get the strap all the way over his head?" 

"You have to lift with your legs. Anyway, just about everything goes over Kevin's head."

From his classroom door, Anthony DiMartino had seen the whole thing. He grinned wolfishly. This might actually be a good day.

Up ahead, at the door to the science lab, Daria and Jane saw that Janet Barch was observing Kevin's plight with fierce glee. Daria was pretty sure she knew what her grade for science that day was going to be. It would probably even rub off on Jane.

Other students had seen the commotion, and were flocking to the site. Daria noted that the fashion clubbers were moving that way, except for Quinn. She stood rooted to the spot, staring wide-eyed at the efforts to rescue Kevin from his athletic supporter, then, with a horrified glance at Daria, fled to the girl's room.

At lunch, having procured their cheap, poorly prepared food, Daria and Jane made their way to the Outcast Table.

"Gee, Daria, do you suppose you killed him?" Jane asked hopefully. "He didn't show up in Barch's class at all, and I haven't seen him since."

"No, I think Coach Gibson let him hide out that period. I think even Kevin is smart enough to know that if he had showed up, the ragging he'd have gotten from Barch would be worse than what I gave him."

"I can't blame him," Mack said as he and Jodie came to the table. "Listening to Barch extemporizing on the theme 'The female of the species is more deadly than the male' for an hour was bad enough. I'd hate to have heard her if she'd had Kevin there to use as an example."

"On the positive side," Jodie said, looking at Mack, "She didn't pick on you for once. What Daria did apparently slaked her bloodlust for a while. What did you do, anyway, Daria? It couldn't have been what I heard."

"Oh, yes it could," Mack replied with a shudder. "All the way over his head and around his neck. He might've strangled if Pavlov the custodian hadn't cut the strap. Daria, don't you think that was a teeny bit extreme?" 

Daria saw Mack's gaze shift to something or someone behind her and instantly back again. Not turning around, she casually lifted the far edge of her brownie until she could use its aluminized wrapper as a rear-view mirror. The image was distorted, but she could tell that it was Kevin Thompson lurking there. 

"After what he said to me? No, I do not," Daria replied. 

"What did he say to you, Daria?" Jodie asked. "Mack didn't tell me."

"That's because I don't know. I suspect Kevin told his buddies not to talk about it. It seems very few people even know who did it to him."

Daria scowled down at her spaghetti and meatballs and colored slightly. Jane said, "After he called her 'Howling Mad Morgendorffer, he said if she wore a t-shirt to the party this Saturday, they'd throw some pennies in the pool for her."

Jodie and Mack threw angry glares over Daria's head. Jodie said, "That's pretty low, even for Kevin."

"You can tell mister QB," Daria paused to spear a meatball and hold it up on the end of her spork for a visual aid, "That if he ever says anything like that to me again, he will have no further use for a jockstrap." She bit off half the meatball and chewed, holding up the half still impaled on her spork. Mack swallowed and looked slightly queasy. From behind her, she heard a small noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper, and the sound of cleated shoes slinking away.

As they hit the sunshine after the last bell, Jane turned to Daria. "See? I told you it wouldn't be so bad! So, you want to celebrate with a pizza?"

"Not today," Daria replied. "I have to go down to the courthouse."

"The courthouse? What for? You gonna finally pay all those jaywalking tickets?"

"No."

"Get a marriage license for you and Trent?"

"Never gonna happen. Resign yourself."

"You and Upchuck?"

"I don't do animal husbandry."

"Well, it wouldn't be Kevin, after this morning. I know. You're gonna get a prostitute's license."

"You didn't get one. Why should I?"

"Hmmm… gonna register as a sex offender?"

"Are you about through?"

"Are you about to fess up?"

"I should just see how many more guesses you're good for."

"I could go on for hours, but I can't guarantee to maintain the high entertainment value. Ummm… you're gonna register your feet as lethal weapons."

"No."

"Your mouth?"

"No."

"Your ass?"

Daria looked around to be sure no one else was within earshot. "I'm going to register as a process server."

Jane stared at Daria for a couple of seconds. "That was my next guess."

"Was not."

"I had it right up to the word 'register'. Why a process server?"

"It's a high-paying part-time job. The work is easy, and you don't get killed much more often than a convenience store clerk."

"That sounds tempting. Why really?"

"So I don't have to pay someone else to serve my subpoenas."

"Subpoenas? Really? You got subpoenas?"

"My lawyer is issuing them."

"That would be your mother?"

"Well, yeah."

"Can I tag along?"

"Sure, if you have bus fare."

"I think I do. How about pizza after?" 

"Can't. I have a strategy meeting at Vitale, Davis, Horowitz, ad nauseam."

"A strategy meeting? You?"

"Mom really wants to inspire me to study law in college."

"And she thinks making you sit in a boring meeting and keep quiet is gonna do that?"

"Apparently. Actually, I think they're gonna need me. About half the partners couldn't sue pee out of a boot with instructions written on the heel."

Jane snorked. "Methinks you exaggerate, amiga."

"Well, maybe a bit. But Mom is one of the bright lights of the firm."

"Hm. Well, if you're gonna be busy indefinitely, I better go on home. Trent has a gig tonight, and someone's gotta wake him up. I'll want the condensed version of that meeting." 

"Okay. See you later, Jane." Daria continued on toward the bus stop as Jane turned and retraced her steps toward their usual route home.

~*~


	13. Serving Her Fellow Man

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

Chapter Thirteen

SERVING HER FELLOW MAN

~*~

It was morning in Lawndale. The birds had cheeped and twittered in the new day, and were now bringing home the worm bacon for the hungry little mouths back at their nests. The gentle peachy rays of the early morning sun were brushing away the last of the night's mists. 

Jane Lane approached Lawndale High, alone. She remembered how she'd felt, coming to school alone, in the days before Daria had come to Lawndale. Lonely. This morning, though, Daria had called her and told her that she had something to do, and would be along later. 

Jane slowed to a jog, then a walk. No need to get sweaty, she had time. She could see other students trickling in through Lawndale High's doors, or standing around outside in small groups, talking. She wondered how long it would take Daria to do whatever she had to do before coming to school, and whether it had anything to do with the legal action that was apparently being prepared against Dr. Drake.

As Jane crossed the street and stepped onto the Lawndale High grounds, a Carter County patrol car swept into the semicircular drive in front of the main doors, followed closely by a fire engine red SUV, scattering a few students. The two vehicles halted and a uniformed deputy dismounted from the patrol car, put on his hat, and hitched at his gun belt. Out of the SUV stepped… Daria Morgendorffer. As Jane and the other students stared, the two fell into step and marched into Lawndale High.

Without really thinking about it, Jane ran to catch up. Daria and the deputy marched side by side down the middle of the hall, students meekly moving aside to let them pass. Jane followed a couple of steps behind. Daria pointed to a door and the deputy nodded. Daria opened it, and they both entered Mrs. Manson's office. Jane shamelessly planted herself at the door, determined to miss nothing.

Manson looked up and was startled to see the deputy. Then, catching sight of Daria, she scowled and demanded, "What is this?"

"This is for you," Daria replied, handing Manson a summons. "You are required to produce all documents in your possession relating to monies paid to you by Dr. Millard Drake."

A noticeable pallor washed over Manson's features. "I… I don't know what you're talking about. I have no such documents."

"In the bottom drawer of that file cabinet," said Daria, pointing. "In a folder marked 'referrals'."

A look of shock and perhaps guilt joined the pallor on Manson's face. "How do you know th… what's in my files?" she demanded?

"I saw you put it there," Daria replied evenly.

"When did you see th… I never…"

"Ma'am," the deputy interrupted, "If you don't produce the specified documents, you can be held in contempt of court, and be charged with obstruction of justice."

Jane badly wished she could see Daria's face. Manson looked furious. She glared at Daria as if she would like to physically attack her, but then took a key from a small box in her desk drawer, turned, squatted, and opened the bottom drawer of the leftmost file cabinet. She removed a file folder and placed it on her desk. Daria flipped the folder open and removed several sheets of paper from it. She examined them briefly, then nodded to the deputy and slipped the papers into her backpack. "Thank you, Mrs. Manson," she said. "See you in court."

"In court?" Manson repeated in an unsteady voice. "What for?"

"For this," Daria replied, handing Manson another summons. "Have a nice day."

Jane backed up as far as she could as the deputy pushed past her, but found that quite a crowd of students had gathered in the hall behind her. But the crowd parted almost magically ahead of the deputy, and Daria followed in his wake. As she passed, Jane saw that her expression was a ferocious predatory smirk.

When they reached open hallway, the two fell into step again, and Jane could not tell who had fallen into step with whom. She followed them back out the doors, and watched as they got into their respective vehicles. Daria waved to Jane as she pulled out behind the deputy, and they disappeared down the street at a rate at least ten miles per hour in excess of the posted speed limit.

~*~

Jane entered Mr. DiMartino's classroom and looked around. No Daria. She hadn't been at her locker, and Jane had been hoping she might be here. Jane shrugged off her book bag and reached into it for her battered, worn history text.

Jodie ended her conversation with Mack and moved nearer to Jane. "Hi, Jane. Where's Daria? I heard that she was arrested before first period and dragged out by the sheriff." At his desk, Mr. DiMartino briefly glanced up at the two girls, then returned his eyes to the day's lesson plan, but kept an ear tuned. 

Jane stifled a laugh. "Daria will get a kick out of that one. Actually, she's serving subpoenas today, and she has a sheriff's deputy helping her."

Jodie stared at Jane for a few seconds, then said, "Yeah, right. What really happened?" Just then, Daria entered the room and politely squeezed herself in between Jane and Jodie to get to her desk.

Jane brightened when she saw Daria. "Hey, amiga! Glad you could drop by! Wassappenin?"

Daria slipped out of her book bag and set it on her desk. "Well, you might say that today is the beginning of the preliminary stage of the butt kicking phase," she said. "Or you might say that I've cried 'havoc!' and let slip the beagles of legal."

The angry entrance of Ms. Li interrupted Jane's next question. "Miss Morgendorffer! I don't know what sort of stunt that was that you pulled this morning, but I'm going to find out! I do know that you left the school grounds and missed your entire first-period writing class. You seem to have the idea that you can just leave school and skip classes whenever you feel like it, Miss Morgendorffer, but I intend to see to it that you never...

Carefully maintaining her deadpan non-expression, Daria stepped forward, invading Ms. Li's personal space until she involuntarily took a step backwards. "Ms. Li, are you aware that it is a misdemeanor to interfere with a process server in the performance of her duties, and a felony in some circumstances?"

"What do you mean, process server?"

Daria pulled a subpoena out of her jacket and handed it to Li. "See? Like this. A subpoena is a process, and I am a registered process server."

"Well, you don't seem to be 'performing' any duties currently, so…"

"Ah, but I am. You have just been served."

Jane's smirk got bigger, as did Jodie's eyes, and the beginnings of a scary looking smile formed on DiMartino's craggy face.

Ms. Li looked at the subpoena in her hand and saw that it had her name on it. "Awp!" she sputtered. What is the meaning of this?"

"The meaning is printed on the inside, Ms. Li. I recommend that you read it very carefully, and if you have any questions, consult your attorney."

Just then, as Ms. Li was taking a deep breath to say something, the bell rang. Anthony DiMartino seized the opportunity and said, "Ms. Li, if you will kindly ex**_cuse_ **us, I will make my **_doomed_** but o**_blig_**atory attempt to **_teach_** these young miscreants something."

Li looked from Daria to DiMartino, to the class as a whole, then back to Daria. Her expression was not in the least inscrutable. She was pissed. "You haven't heard the last of this, Miss Morgendorffer!" she hissed.

"Oh, I agree. I expect to hear much more from you, Ms. Li," Daria smirked. "From the witness stand. Under oath."

DiMartino wisely waited until Ms. Li had departed before grinning wickedly and rubbing his hands together. "**_Thank_** you, Miss Morgendorffer, that was… very edu**_ca_**tional. And now for something com**_plete_**ly different. In 1926 when the Emperor Hiro**_hi_**to ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne, he took the official name of **_Showa_**, which means 'Peace and Enlightenment." The student of **_history_**, present company excepted, cannot fail to perceive the **_irony_**…"

~*~

As Daria paid for her lunch and followed Jane to their table, she saw Jodie and Mack in line, just getting their salad. Jodie saw her and waved briefly. "Well, look at that. That's three days in a row Jodie has managed to work lunch into her schedule," she observed.

"It's probably a working lunch. She's on the Lowdown, and you're probably going to be page one, two, and three this week," Jane observed.

"Oh, sure. Go ahead, ruin my appetite," Daria groaned as she slid onto the bench.

"Ha. Since when have you had an appetite for mystery meat chop suet?" Jane retorted.

"I have to eat a few bites of something to get me as far as Pizza King. Well, better to talk to Jodie than to let the rumors propagate totally unchecked, I suppose." So saying, Daria began cautiously ingesting her daily ration of government-supplied nutrition.

"Hey, Daria," Jodie said as she and Mack sat down at the table. "Well, Jane, I guess you weren't kidding about Daria serving subpoenas today. But, Daria, why did you come with a sheriff's deputy this morning, and then take off again, and then serve Ms. Li in Mr. DiMartino's class without a deputy? I have to admit, it was great theater, but did you really set it up like that?"

Daria smiled a bit as she finished chewing a gristly bit of chop suey. "I wish I was that good. No, Li was a target of opportunity this morning. I was going to serve her after school if I didn't see her sooner. The deputy was just for the document subpoenas I served on Manson and Drake. Mom thought he should be there for the extra intimidation value."

"But why didn't you go on and serve all your subpoenas while he was here?" asked Mack.

"Because he charges forty bucks a pop, for one thing," Daria replied.

"You had to pay him? Isn't that part of his job?"

"Don't hold me to this, because I'm not a lawyer," Daria said. "For certain kinds of subpoenas, it would have been, like in criminal cases, and if the recipient is thought to be dangerous. In the case of Manson and Drake, we couldn't show that they had or should have had the documents we subpoenaed, so we couldn't get a deputy assigned. But we thought there was a danger that they'd just deny having them, and then shred them later, so we hired an off- duty deputy to 'scare 'em straight', so to speak. It's a fairly common practice. And it worked. I got the documents from both of 'em, and delivered them to Mom's law firm, and came back here."

"Do you have any other subpoenas to serve?" Jodie asked.

"Just one." Daria removed a subpoena from her inside jacket pocket, handed it to Jodie, and took a bite of chop suey.

Jodie looked at the document, and her eyebrows rose. "Mr. O'Neill?"

Daria looked troubled. "Yeah. I didn't want to involve him, but the sharks think we may need him for the case."

Jodie was reading through the subpoena. "But this names him as a defendant. That can't be right." 

"I think that's just a tactic to get him to cooperate."

"But what grounds do you have?" Mack asked. 

"Well, he was the one who sent me to Manson, and you guys haven't seen any of the letters he's been sending home with me. He really seems to think I have a warped, twisted mind because of some of the assignments I've done in his class. Mom wants to know the details of any conversations he may have had with Manson. I think she intends to get me to help her run a variation of "good cop, bad cop" on him."

"But Daria, we're talking about Mr. O'Neill here. You know he never intended you any harm." Jodie handed the document to Mack, who'd been trying to read it over her shoulder.

"Sure, I know that. He's just a sweet, mushy-headed, born-too-late flower child. But he doesn't have to intend harm to cause harm. Remember when he labeled me a political extremist and a right-wing propagandist in the Lawndale Sun-Herald?"

Jodie frowned at her chop suey. "Oh, yeah, the first time he closed the coffee shop. Hmm. You have a point there. But do you really think he did anything bad enough to be sued over?"

"No I don't, personally, but it's in the hands of the lawyers now. Mom says it was a tactical decision, and that I'll just have to trust her on things like that." Daria tried ineffectually to spear a piece of lettuce with her spork. "Intentional or not, his actions had the effect of putting me and, it's turning out, several other students, in the hands of people who were only interested in money rather than our welfare. I don't like seeing him thrown to the sharks, but I didn't like being thrown to the pigs either."

The four ate in silence for a minute. Then Mack said, "Well, I hope they get what they deserve, whatever that is. But I'm kind of worried about you, Daria. You haven't been yourself lately, to say the least. These last couple of days you've been almost… ferocious. I hope it's just because of circumstances, and you'll be back to your usual sweet self as soon as this is over."

Daria smiled a small smile and briefly met Mack's gaze. "Thanks. It's nice of you to say so."

"Albeit totally inaccurate," Jane added.

Three pairs of eyes turned to Jane. Mack asked, "What do you mean?"

"Daria _has_ been herself lately, except for that twelve hours or so after she took the pill. She just seldom has occasion to let her ferocious side out. It's well restrained, but it's there."

Jodie and Mack exchanged glances and then looked back at Jane. Daria sighed and said, "If you were my friend, you'd let me hang on to a few illusions." She smiled a small lopsided smile.

Jane smirked back. "Naah. Friends don't let friends drive deluded."

"So when are you going to give it to him?" Jodie asked.

Daria pondered briefly. "Well, taking an educated guess at how much it's likely to upset him, and not being a big fan of bloody car accidents, I think I'll wait till after he gets home this evening." The other three likewise pondered briefly, nodded, and returned to prospecting their chop suey for edible bits.


	14. Come back, Crazy Alice

Chapter Fourteen

COME BACK, CRAZY ALICE

~*~

A few days later, Daria and Jane were sitting on the Morgendorffer sofa, flipping through the TV channels. "I was actually going to thank the little creep for helping me," Daria fumed, "and then I find out he's given a transcript of that doggerel I was spouting to the Lowdown."

"That was pretty good doggerel if you ask me," Jane opined. "I think you should have signed those copies for your fans. I gave Trent a copy and he was almost pathetically grateful. He's sure there's a chart-topper in there somewhere."

"It was dumb and stupid and just plain bad. And it's a ripoff of the work of a genuinely good poet."

"It got a pretty good round of applause at the mall."

"They were applauding you guys hauling me away. Well, it could be worse, I guess. At least it only appeared in the Lowd…" Daria was interrupted by Jane snatching the remote out of her hand and turning up the sound.

Daria stared at the screen in surprise and then growing horror. Security cam footage showed her at the mall, letting go of the Cheshire Cat's tail and falling into the arms of Trent and Upchuck, and all three of them falling into the penny pool. A voice-over proclaimed, "She really ate the wrong mushroom this time! Now she's a poet and too stoned to know it! Alice in Wackyland, next on Sick, Sad World!"

Daria sprang to her feet. "Aaargghhh! I'll kill 'im! I swear to Bob I'll kill 'im! Then I'll prop him up and kill him again!" Too furious to sit, she prowled back and forth through the family room. "Did you hear that 'hit-the-mike' noise when I fell on Upchuck? He had that recorder of his in his pocket! He was following me around, recording all my ravings! And he sold it to Sick Sad World! I'll kill 'im!"

Jake took the opportunity to slip out to the kitchen. "Helen! Helen! Daria's gone berserk! She's gonna kill somebody! Twice!" he exclaimed.

"Don't worry, dear, the second time is free," Helen responded sardonically. "Seriously, she's just a little agitated, and understandably so. You should go to her and say something comforting."

"So, exactly how are you gonna kill him, do you think?" Jane asked Daria.

"Some very painful method, that's for sure," Daria snarled. She sat silent for a while, staring at the screen. "Seriously, I'll have to think about it, come up with something appropriate. The punishment must fit the crime."

"But not too long, right?" Jane replied. You want swift justice, right? Justice delayed is justice denied, and all that?"

"Wrong concept," Daria said. "I'm talking revenge here. And, as some old Frenchman once said, revenge is a dish best served cold."

As Jake tentatively re-entered the family room, the TV showed a blond woman with a British accent interviewing some children at the mall. "There seem to be a lot of young people here today," she observed. "Could you tell us why that is?"

"We're waiting for Crazy Alice to come back," an expensively but scruffily dressed urchin informed her. Another juvenile, who was showing somewhat more underwear than was strictly fashionable, agreed. "We like Crazy Alice. She's silly!" "She's gonna lead us all to Never-Never Land!" exclaimed a third. "That's Wonderland, stupid!" a blue haired girl with metallic decals stuck all over her face corrected him. "I'm Beth Ann! Hi, Mom!" 

The blond woman pulled the microphone back to herself and said, "And there you have it. Hundreds of children like these, waiting at this mall all day long, hoping for the return of the mysterious 'Crazy Alice.' Back to you, Dick."

Jane grinned. "Way to go, amiga! Hundreds of fans! And if you play your cards right, you can convert most of them to followers. Start your own religion, there's where the real money is! Ask Sun Myung Moon! Ask L. Ron Hubbard!"

Daria was putting together a suitably excoriating reply to that when the phone rang. Her prowlings back and forth having brought her to within arm's reach of it, she picked it up out of habit. "Hello!… hello? …Hey!" Daria held the handset to her ear, listening, her expression first puzzled, then irritated. After several seconds, she hung up.

Looking up, Daria wasn't too surprised to see everyone looking at her. Helen did the honors. "Who was it?"

"Aunt Amy," Daria replied, looking unhappy.

"What did she say?" Quinn asked.

"Nothing. She couldn't stop laughing. I could hear Sick, Sad World in the background." 

~*~

Later, as they were eating dinner, Helen asked, "So what did Amy say when she called back?"

"Well, she apologized for laughing, of course. Said she was surprised at how funny I was, that she hadn't gotten that from my description of the incident." Daria poked at her green beans. "I didn't think I was that funny."

"I didn't either," Quinn said shortly, likewise giving her green beans a lot of attention. 

"Well, I had other things on my mind at the time that kept me from appreciating the humor of the situation," Helen said. 

"I was worried about you too, amiga, but I gotta admit you were putting on a good show. Objectively, you were pretty darn funny," Jane said.

"I guess tomorrow I'll be getting an objective opinion from everyone at school," Daria said in a slightly strained voice. 

Helen studied Daria with concern. "Sweetie, don't hold your knife like that. You look like you're trying to stab your lasagna to death. I'm sure everyone will be understanding and supportive." 

"Everyone on what planet?" Quinn snapped. "Everyone at Lawndale High will think she's a dangerous lunatic, and they'll think I'm probably one too! I'm _ruined! _My life is **_over!_**"

"That's how understanding and supportive they'll be," said Daria, pointing at Quinn, "except they'll be laughing their butts off." She stabbed her lasagna again. "Thanks to Upchuck and his pocket recorder. I guess it's way too late to subpoena that tape."

"We probably couldn't have suppressed it even if we'd known about its existence in advance," Helen replied. "The mall is a public place, and what you did was newsworthy. But we'll definitely subpoena it for evidence. That tape, along with the security camera tapes from the mall, is extremely powerful evidence in support of our case. Do you want to serve the subpoena, Daria? We can just mail it to him, you know."

"Just mail it," said Daria. "It wouldn't be safe for me to get that close to the little weasel." She stabbed her lasagna again.

~*~


	15. The Wheels of Justice

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

Chapter Fifteen

THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE

~*~

Daria surveyed her lunch tray with something akin to despair. Macaroni and cheese, pasta salad, a gummy, half-baked dinner roll, and severely overcooked cabbage. This was bad, even by Lawndale High standards.

"So, Daria, can you bring us up to date on how the lawsuits are going?" Jodie asked.

Glad to be distracted from the nutritional wasteland that was her tray, Daria said, "Sure. It's not like I'm going to be doing much eating today. The malpractice suit against Drake is under way. I'll be in court for at least the next two days testifying. We're pretty sure we'll win, but they may appeal."

"The suit against Manson was settled out of court. The school district doesn't pay any damages, but Manson has to get a psychological evaluation, do a bunch of community service, and then requalify for the counselor job if she wants it back." 

"So Manson is gone?" Jane asked Daria.

"For a couple of months at least. She has to do five hundred hours of community service at the homeless shelter and then be re-evaluated."

"Oh, that poor woman." Jodie shook her head. "She'll be a completely different person after_ that_ experience."

"A better one, do you think?" Daria asked.

"Probably so, for the most part, although she may need to be retrained not to pee in alleys and curse like a syphilitic sailor. I guess you'd prefer she not come back here at all, Daria."

Daria smirked at Jodie's homeless shelter memories. "No, actually, now that she's so thoroughly broken in, it'd be kind of a shame to have to start breaking in a new one. Besides, I want to ask her how the new sphincter is working out for her."

"Ooh, rub salt in the wound, eh? You're vicious, Daria. That'll stand you in good stead out in the real world. What about O'Neill?"

"O'Neill will get evaluated too, and be unofficially counseled."

"Unofficially counseled? What does that mean?"

"The Superintendent or someone will talk to him, but it won't go on his record. I think they'll just tell him to grow up and get real." 

Jane made a faint snorting noise. "What do you suppose are the chances he'll do that?"

"I'd say slim and none." Jodie smiled ruefully.

"That would be my first reaction too, but the school of hard knocks never closes." mused Daria.

"Neither does the fool killer." smirked Jane. "So I guess it's a race."

Jodie giggled. "Jane, you've been hanging around Daria too much. Her cynicism is rubbing off on you. What about Ms. Li, Daria?"

"I imagine Ms. Li will get some sort of talking to for letting Manson get away with that crap for so long, but that wasn't part of the settlement," Daria replied.

"And the drug company?" Jane asked.

"The damage suit against Scutter Pharmaceuticals has to wait until after the criminal trial for bribery and racketeering. Mom thinks that if they're found guilty on any count of that, they'll settle the suit out of court. I probably won't have to testify at the trial."

"I see what that old saying means, about the wheels of justice grinding slowly," mused Mack.

"Mom says these cases are being resolved unusually quickly," said Daria.

"Dang," Mack said, shaking his head. "I'd hate to see slowly, then. Say, are you going to eat your roll?"

"Be my guest." Daria said as she nibbled some macaroni and cheese.

Jane paused in picking through her pasta salad for olive bits. "Wasn't there someone else?"

Daria thought a minute. "Oh, yeah, the store, because their pharmacy should've already pulled the Prohappia. They settled. We agreed to take the award in the form of a scholarship so they can hide it in their scholarship program. They agreed to make it transferrable so I can give it to Quinn if I land another scholarship."

Mack had a wistful look on his face. "If you get accepted by a top-ranked school, and decide to use it yourself, that could be worth…"

Daria nodded. "A lot."

~*~

"Don't fidget, Daria. You look wonderful! So young, so bright , so …sharp…"

Helen and Daria were standing just outside Courtroom One in the Carter County courthouse with Eric Schrecter and Wanda Farafield. The marble walls and granite floors of the edifice were impressive but not welcoming. The few massive oak benches against the walls did not tempt the weary litigant to seek her ease thereon.

"I look like a fake Japanese schoolgirl wardrobed for a porno movie," Daria muttered. She was wearing a navy blue blazer with gold buttons and a crest on the breast pocket, a white blouse, a blue plaid pleated skirt, white calf length socks, and her Doc Marten's Mary Janes- the only part of her outfit that hadn't been bought specifically for her court appearance.

Helen looked shocked, and Eric Schrecter looked embarrassed, but Wanda, the firm's PR expert, smiled knowingly.

"That's partially deliberate, Daria. We want your appearance to push a lot of the same buttons. We want you to look as young and innocent and studious and defenseless as possible, to make every adult in the courtroom want to protect you."

"I understand that, and I'll play along with it. That doesn't mean I like the look. I feel naked without my boots. And I still think the headband is overkill."

Wanda smiled. "Trust me, Daria, it's just the right amount of kill."

Eric turned his attention from Daria to her mother. "Helen, that was good work with those subpoenas. We seldom see a case where the defendants are caught this flatfooted, and we wind up with this much incriminating evidence. You should be proud of your mom, Daria." 

Daria thought about her black bag job that had led to the subpoenas. She looked at Helen and smiled a small smile. "Mom has an instinct for that sort of thing. I hardly ever get away with anything when she's around." Helen rolled her eyes but returned the smile.

That elicited a low chuckle from Eric. "Neither do I," he said. "Helen, I still want to know how you knew what they had, and where."

Helen and Daria shared a look. "No, Eric, you really don't," Helen said. "Trust me on that." A bailiff opened the courtroom door and they filed in.

~*~

That afternoon, Helen and Daria walked down the steps of the courthouse and turned toward the parking lot. Helen said, "Daria, that was one of the most moving performances I've ever seen from a witness. I had no idea you could act like that."

"Acting? Is that what you think I was doing?"

Helen turned her head to look at her daughter. "Well, um, what were you doing?"

"I was just being honest and open about the pain and suffering I actually went through. Normally, I keep my feelings to myself because I figure they're nobody else's business. But I want to make damn sure those people pay for what they did to me." 

"And what about me, Daria? I'm the one who filled the prescription. I'm the one who made you swallow the pill."

Daria chose her words carefully. "You're different. You're my mother."

"Oh, Daria, I'm so sorry for what happened. I'd never have given you that pill if I'd known what it would do to you. I only did it because the doctor said it would help you, and I love you and want you to be happy."

"Yeah, I know."

"But I won't make that mistake again. From now on, I'll listen to you, and I'll be sure I have all the facts before I make a decision like that. I promise." 

"And I'll remind you if necessary." Daria looked down at the ground and continued in a mumble, "and I, um, loveyoutoo."

Helen looked at Daria and smiled a very unlawyerly smile. "Tomorrow is going to be tougher, I'm afraid. Counsel for the defense will cross-examine, and they won't go easy on you."

"Hmf. If they think they can break me down, they're in for a surprise. And the harder they grill me, the meaner they'll look, and the more jury sympathy for us, right?"

"Yes, Daria, but don't get overconfident. They have more up their sleeves than simple intimidation. Be very careful what you say."

~~~~~

It was afternoon as Daria descended the courthouse steps again, only a few days later it seemed, although much had happened. The sun on Daria's face felt extra good today. It felt like victory. Morgendorffer versus Drake was over, and they had won. She had won. On paper Daria Morgendorffer was now worth two million dollars. Daria smiled. She knew that she would almost certainly never actually receive that much, but on the other hand, she probably would receive some substantial amount. Eventually. 

"You do understand, don't you, that Drake's insurance company will appeal, and drag this through the courts for as long as they can? And the drug company will help them," Helen said. 

Daria turned to her mother. "Yes, and I wanted to talk to you about that. I'm thinking that I can probably come up with a way to make myself and this case a colossal pain in the butt, a pain they'll want to have done with as soon as possible."

"Don't bet on it, Daria. These people are tough."

"Well, I'll bet there are ways to make it more advantageous to them to pay up than to drag it out endlessly through the courts."

"There are things you can't do or say about a case on appeal."

"That's what I want to talk to you about."

It suddenly dawned on Helen that Daria was saying that she wanted to learn some law. Specific information for a specific purpose, admittedly, but she actually wanted to study law. And Helen knew enough about Daria's reading and research habits to know that when Daria became interested in a subject, she researched it intensively, and her specific interests often broadened into much more general ones.

"All right, Daria. We can talk after dinner."

"Do you think I could come to the office and look some things up there?" Daria asked. 

Helen felt like shouting, but restrained herself. She smiled and said, "I think that could be arranged."

~~~~~


	16. Sittin' in the Railway Station

THE CUCKOO'S EGG

__

by Galen Hardesty

Chapter Sixteen

SITTIN' IN THE RAILWAY STATION

~*~

Daria paused just inside the lobby of the Carter County Mental Health Services building, and took in the grand vaulted ceiling and the stark Art Deco chandeliers. It still looked like what it had been built to be, so long ago-- a railroad station. Daria felt a strangely powerful urge to board a transcontinental express and reread Atlas Shrugged.

Tearing her gaze away from the architecture, Daria scanned the oak benches that filled less than half of the lobby. Her quarry sat, disconsolate, on one of the nearer ones. Daria closed in.

"Hi, Mr. O'Neill. How are you feeling?"

O'Neill looked up. "Horrible!" he moaned. "Your beautiful mind could have been ruined, and it's all my fault! What must you think of me?"

"Mr. O'Neill, we've already been through the fault-finding process, and the lion's share was assigned to Dr. Drake and Mrs. Manson. It's official. Accept it." O'Neill continued to blubber, face in hands. Daria sat down beside him and hesitantly put a hand on his shoulder. "You really want to know what I think of you? I think you're a kind, caring, sensitive man who somehow developed a set of utopian expectations about what the world should be like, and is trying to make the real world measure up to them. You need to face reality, but you haven't a mean bone in your body. You did what you thought was best for me. You sent me to someone you thought could help. You were wrong, but not evil. Here, I brought you some chamomile tea. Hope you like it with honey."

"Thank you, Daria. That's very considerate." He opened the lid of the styrofoam cup she offered him, inhaled the vapors rising off the still-hot tea, and smiled. Then he shook his head ruefully. "I was so sure that assignment would help you to write a happy, cheerful story. Where did I go wrong?"

"I didn't want to be helped that way. I could write happy stuff if I wanted to. If you were to flat out order me to write one, I would, but I would resent it. I would consider it an unwarranted intrusion into my creative process." 

He looked surprised for a moment, then thoughtful. "I can see why you'd resent doing something opposite of what you want to do. But I still don't see why you'd want to write unhappy stories."

"I want to write all kinds of stories. I'm learning, experimenting, trying different things. What would Shakespeare's plays be like if nothing bad ever happened to any of the characters?"

"Hmm," he said. "I never thought of it that way."

Daria looked down at the floor. "For what it's worth," she said, "I'm sorry the story I wrote got you into this."

"That's very nice of you, Daria," he replied. He sipped his tea, and his gaze wandered to a railroad-themed mural on the wall. "I can't say I wasn't warned. You told me way back at the beginning of your sophomore year that if I sent you to Mrs. Manson, you'd put us both in the loony bin."

Daria looked puzzled for a second, then remembered their conversation in Cafe Lawndale, after closing time. "Oh, yeah, I did say that, didn't I? But you're not in the loony bin. You're just here for an interview, and I think that's only because Superintendent Cartwright wanted to seem even-handed. Look, just say you were concerned for my well being, and don't go on about how dark you think my outlook is as opposed to how cheery and optimistic you think I should be, and you'll be all right. Oh, and don't dwell on all those herbs you take, and don't mention your crystals or your collection of crying clown paintings."

"Yes, probably good advice," he agreed. "Thank you for coming, Daria. I'm feeling much better. Mrs. Manson is here for her appointment too, you know."

"Yes, I know. I want to speak to her, too. I'll see you later, Mr. O'Neill."

Daria rose and walked toward the other end of the lobby, to another bench where Mrs. Manson was sitting. Manson looked up, scowling. "Well, I hope you're happy, Dara."

Daria let the name pass without comment. "No, more like vindicated."

"This is a permanent black mark on my record. Why shouldn't you be happy?"

Daria arched an eyebrow. "Awwww, a black mark. So you can dish 'em out, but you can't take em. You don't mind hanging labels on children that will follow them all their lives just for spite, but when you find yourself labeled, quite properly, you don't like it." 

"Dara, I didn't label you. I referred you to a specialist, and rightly so. You wrote about leaping out of that nest to your death to escape what you saw as intolerable living conditions at home. I may well have prevented a suicide attempt on your part. They can't blame me for that."

"That story was totally tongue in cheek, and almost every student in that class knew it. They were cracking up when I left. I think you knew it too. But that's not what I'm talking about."

"Then what... Mrs. Manson looked puzzled for a moment, then the dawn came. "Surely you're not talking about your first day at Lawndale High, when I interviewed you and recommended you attend that self-esteem class?"

Daria allowed a bit of a smirk to show. "You thought I'd forgotten that, did you? I poked a little fun at your precious cards and your brain-dead methodologies, and you couldn't handle it. You threw me in that self-esteem class to teach me not to sass my betters. Your mistake was that you're nowhere near being my better." 

Mrs. Manson looked like she wanted to obliterate Daria with a crushing retort, but couldn't think of one. "I can't believe that class was so unbearable," she said, in lieu of anything pithier.

"It was as bad as Mr. O'Neill could unintentionally make it, which is fairly bad. But I made a good friend in that class, so I'm actually glad I was in it. What I object to is, to quote you, "a permanent black mark on my record." A false mark, a mark I didn't deserve."

"Don't kid yourself, Dara. You definitely had low self-esteem."

Daria leaned closer, her features set hard. "Don't you kid yourself, Manson. You have low competence. If you were any good, you wouldn't be working at Lawndale High. I had, and still have, very high self-esteem, and I know you know that from Dr. Millepieds' comprehensive evaluation. You were pissed off because I had low esteem for your lame methods, and you abused your position to 'teach me a lesson.' Well, what goes around, comes around. Now I'm teaching you the lesson. "

"So you're willing to totally wreck my life just to 'teach me a lesson?' You have absolutely no concept of proportion, do you?"

"I don't take kindly to people screwing around with my brain. And you're conveniently forgetting about all the other kids you sent to Dr. Quack for drugs they didn't need. And anyway, I didn't send you here. Cartwright did." 

"You vengeful little bitch. My career is probably ruined. What am I going to do now?"

Daria smiled a wicked little smile. "You're going to talk with the nice psychologist, so he can spot any little problems on the horizon. After that, you're going to service your community. After that, I suggest you start a new career in a field where you can't harm innocent people."

Daria turned and started to walk away, then turned back. "And if you ever again have occasion to address me, you will do so as either Daria or Ms. Morgendorffer. Fool with my name again and you will further regret it." She spun on her heels and walked off, the sound of her bootheels on the terrazzo floor reverberating through the cavernous lobby, leaving Margaret Manson gaping after her.

~*~


	17. The Rat With A Hundred Faces

THE CUCKOO'S EGG  
  
by Galen Hardesty  
  
Chapter Seventeen  
  
THE RAT WITH A HUNDRED FACES  
  
~*~  
  
Jane and Daria set their trays down across from Jodie's and Mack's. Jodie looked up and said, "Hi, Daria, how's the legal battle going?"  
  
Daria seated herself on the immobile bench with as little awkwardness as she could manage. "Well, Drake's insurance company has appealed. The suit against the drug company could take years, but Mom thinks it'll make me a millionaire before I'm through college. Which would make her one too, of course."  
  
"Wow. Really?"  
  
"I'll believe it when I roll in it. But at the least, it's a big case and a very big case that Mom's brought to the firm. They ought to be enough to get her that partnership."  
  
"If she's as good then as she was this last time, I believe it," Jodie said. "I'm so glad the Drake case was televised. We videotaped the whole thing, and we're going to transfer it to DVD-R, once I figure out how. My mom even enjoyed watching your mom. And we all enjoy watching you."  
  
"Oh, come on. Pull the other one." Daria demurred.  
  
"No, really. I particularly love the part where you're being cross- examined, and you make that famous lawyer look foolish. You were great!"  
  
Daria couldn't help smiling at that memory. She looked down at her plate and tried to force her spork into one of the cafeteria's seemingly bulletproof chicken nuggets. "Well, he asked for it. Apparently a lot of people have seen that part. I've gotten scholarship offers from Vale and Flintston if I want to study law, and they mention the trial."  
  
"That's wonderful, Daria. Are you going to accept?"  
  
"My first impulse was not to, because I want to be a writer. But the more I learn about writing, the more I realize that almost all writers have another source of income, even the so-called 'successful' ones. And many writers who can support themselves by their writing alone are writing about some field that they have expertise in. There are a lot of books, articles, and columns written about the law and laws and court cases. A lot of TV and movie scripts, too. And that's before you even mention politics. An aspiring writer could do worse than study law, and a scholarship to the Vale school of Law isn't to be turned down lightly. I'll have to think about it." Daria sighed, laid down her spork, and picked up the nugget with her fingers. "How are those other kids who went off Drake's prescriptions?"  
  
Jodie thought a minute. "Well, Tiffany is a totally different person. She's doing much better in all her classes. She was pretty cranky for a week or so, and she still doesn't take any crap from anybody, but she's a lot more interesting now."  
  
Daria smiled. "Yeah, I noticed. She's more like I remember her from when I first moved here. Quinn said she bit Sandi's head off, and Sandi's been walking on eggs around her ever since."  
  
Jodie continued, "Karen got depressed, and went back on something. She seems to be doing some better. Cindy doesn't seem any different. Most of the kids I know of who came off Ritalin have stayed off it."  
  
"That's great," Daria said. "I'm glad some good has come of that awful day." She shuddered as she sporked a rubbery tomato wedge.  
  
"What about Upchuck?" Jane asked Daria. "As I recall, you swore a blood oath of terrible revenge against him."  
  
Daria replied, "Yeah, and I was plotting it. But I wanted to have the revenge fit the crime. I wanted it to be something along the lines of violating his privacy, the way he violated mine when he followed me and recorded my ravings at the mall, and then sold the recording to Sick Sad World and gave the transcript to the Lowdown."  
  
"Sounds good. So what did you come up with? Don't even try to tell us you couldn't think of anything," Jane leered nastily.  
  
"Well, I did think of something. you know those little locker assignment slips we get the first day of the school year with the locker number and combination on them? I thought of making one or more of those on my printer with Upchuck's name, locker number, and combination, and leaving them where someone who'd probably get into his locker would find them.  
  
"But then my damn conscience got to bothering me. See, much as I dislike what he did, we were in a public place. I was declaiming to a crowd. I had no legitimate expectation of privacy. Upchuck does, for whatever's in his locker. So I finally decided that, as sleazy and rotten as what he did seemed to me, I really couldn't justify giving out his locker combination."  
  
"Shoot. I'd have gone ahead and done it," said Jane. "If I could get his combination, that its." Jodie nodded in agreement. "But I guess that's easier said than done, huh?"  
  
"It didn't seem to be. I just watched him open his locker three times and I had it. I even printed up a little slip that looks just like the ones they hand out. It's in my pocket here." Daria reached into her jacket pocket and felt around, then, frowning slightly, she reached into the other jacket pocket. Her hand came out empty. "Hm. I'm sure I put it in this pocket."  
  
Daria noticed that the others' attention was on several girls who had entered the cafeteria and seemed to be looking for someone. Now that it had come to her attention, she recalled having seen a couple of cheerleaders come through a few minutes before, also searching for someone.  
  
Shortly after the girls had left, Upchuck entered. He had the look of someone who is looking out for people who are looking for someone. He proceeded at a brisk walk down an aisle toward a door on the opposite side, looking all around him. As he neared the door, three cheerleaders, including Bittany, came in the way he had entered. A girl stood up and pointed, and Brittany cried, "There he is!" and the cheerleaders set off after him. Upchuck broke into a run and disappeared through the door.  
  
Jodie held up a hand as Brittany rushed by. "What's going on?" she asked.  
  
Brittany paused. "That rat! You wouldn't believe what he was doing! He was putting the faces of Lawndale High girls on dirty pictures off the Internet! I think he was even selling them to guys! Ooooh! When we catch him." and she ran out the way Upchuck had gone.  
  
They watched some other girls run past, blood in their eyes. "I guess as long as it's only girls after him, he'll eventually escape," Jane surmised. "I'm pretty sure I'm the only female here who can run him down, and I haven't finished my double fudgy cookie yet."  
  
Just then, Upchuck ran past again from another direction. Hot on his heels were two members of the Lions backfield, egged on by two cheerleaders. "Oooh," said Daria, "That doesn't look good for Upchuck." Her thoughtful expression turned worried. "I'm going to walk by his locker, and maybe down the hall a ways, and make sure there aren't any of those pictures scattered around."  
  
The other three watched her go. Jodie cocked an eyebrow. "Fell out of her pocket. Right. Like Kevin's jockstrap accidentally got tangled around his neck."  
  
"I dunno. It could have happened like that. Daria usually owns up to the stuff she does," Jane observed, meditatively chewing her cookie.  
  
"What do you think, Mack?" Jodie asked.  
  
"Seems there's no way to know for sure," Mack smiled thoughtfully. "I'll just note that as things stand now, she gets credit for the clever revenge scheme but maintains plausible deniability about executing it, maybe even to herself. Maybe that's the way she wants to leave it." He rose and picked up his tray. "I think I'll go see if there are any homicides I can prevent, or something."  
  
"Make that 'just barely prevent,'" Jane called after him. "Don't get in a rush. You wouldn't want to get a cramp."  
  
La la LA la la.  
  
Well, that's it. I hope you enjoyed it, those of you who hung on till the end. Thanks for all the props and encouragement. Now I need a few cold- hearted, ruthless beta readers. Please email me if interested, stating your favorite flavor of file.  
  
LS 


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